• Artist: Mark Knopfler

• Release Date: 16th November, 2018

• Genre: Rock, Blues, Americana

• Record Label: Universal Music

• Tracks: 16

• Website: http://www.markknopfler.com/

Ask Mark Knopfler to explain the title of his ninth solo studio album and he will tell you that ‘Down The Road Wherever’ is a line from one of the tracks: 'One Song At A Time.' He'll give the credit for that title phrase to a sadly departed friend with whom he shared a lifelong love of songwriting and guitar playing, and their endless potential to change lives.

‘I remember my pal Chet Atkins once saying that he picked his way out of poverty one song at a time, and it just stuck in my mind,’ says Mark. ‘You get to an age where it is a few songs. But Down The Road Wherever seems to be appropriate, just because it's what I've always done. I've always tried to keep my own geography happening in the songs, that applies there as well.’ In One Song At A Time' that autobiographical geography pinpoints Deptford, where the up-and-coming Dire Straits began to make their way, one song at a time.

The unassuming spirit of the itinerant songsmith is still Knopfler's pilot light, inextinguishable through more than 40 years at the absolute pinnacle of his profession. ‘Down The Road Wherever’ is the latest, elegant evidence of that steadfast hunger, a bold and often surprising songbook of 14 selections (more on the deluxe editions) boiled down from twice as many that went into the workshop.