It really was a dark and stormy night in 1977 when guitarist Mark Knopfler popped into a tumbledown bar in London and happened upon some song inspiration. Inside, as Knopfler would later recall, was a ...

Released as the first single from Dire Straits‘ eponymous 1978 debut, “Sultans of Swing” hit No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and has remained a staple song within the British rockers’ classic catalog.

It was a rainy night in Ipswich, Suffolk, England, when Mark Knopfler found himself in a small pub watching a Dixieland jazz band playing to an audience of less than a handful of drunken patrons. The ...