Dire Straits Dire Straits Dire Straits were a British rock band formed in London in 1977 by Mark Knopfler (lead vocals and lead guitar), David Knopfler (rhythm guitar and backing vocals), John Illsley (bass guitar and backing vocals), and Pick Withers (drums and percussion). The band became one of the world's best-selling music artists, with album sales of over 100 million. Their first hit single "Sultans of Swing", from their self-titled debut album, reached the top ten in the UK and US charts in 1978. They released hit singles in the 1980s, such as "Private Investigations" (1983), "Money for Nothing" (1985), and
Communiqué (Dire Straits album) gold in 1979. "Communiqué" was remastered and released with the rest of the Dire Straits catalogue in 1996 for most of the world outside the United States and on 19 September 2000 in the United States. The album cover was designed by Phonogram's advertising agency Grant Advertising UK. It won album cover of the year in the NME awards in 1979. In a 1979 review for the "Birmingham Daily Post", Jonathan Daümler-Ford called it a "competent record", but wrote that "the songs sound like pale imitations, or the cuts which were not good enough for "Dire Straits"". In his retrospective