This Yacht Rock Group’s Recording Sessions Were So Difficult That Hired Musicians Allegedly “Crawled” Out of the Studio

No two musicians record an album the same way, which can make studio collaborations inspiring and eye-opening experiences as artists take cues from one another’s creative processes. Alternatively, these clashing workflows can also feel like “getting into a swimming pool with lead weights tied to your boot.” At least, that’s how Dire Straits founder Mark Knopfler described recording with jazz-rockers Steely Dan.

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As Knopfler (and others) have recalled over the years, Steely Dan didn’t just record their albums differently from other bands. After making the transition from a live band to a studio-only duo in the mid-1970s, Steely Dan didn’t even record their own albums the same way twice.

Mark Knopfler Was Invited to Record With Steely Dan in 1978

With the exception of a single player’s substitution here and there, most classic rock bands went into the studio with the same general lineup. If you heard a Rolling Stones record, then the guitar you were hearing was Keith Richards. The roaring drums on any given Led Zeppelin track were always John Bonham, and so on. But Steely Dan was a notable exception, which makes sense, given the variety of their music.

The band now most commonly associated with yacht rock was comprised of two main musicians, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen. Post-1974, the year they decided to stop performing live, the pair opted to hire session musicians to play on their albums. Interestingly, they would record the same album multiple times with different players. Those who were hired to track with the duo never knew whether their parts would make the final cut until they heard the finished product.

Dire Straits founder Mark Knopfler found himself on the receiving end of one of these hallowed casting calls in 1978. Dire Straits was on tour. So, Steely Dan invited the guitarist to track with them in the studio on his off days. Knopfler agreed, but he kept his expectations low.

“I certainly wasn’t expecting to walk out at the end of that day and have anything on the record that they would keep,” Knopfler later told Guitar Player. “The story that I got from [their] engineer was something like, ‘Man, you ought to see the guys crawling out of this place.’ So, I didn’t expect to emerge victorious at all.”

The Dire Straits Founder Ended Up Making the Final Cut

When Steely Dan called Mark Knopfler into the studio, they were working on their seventh studio album, Gaucho. The duo wanted Knopfler to play lead guitar on the fifth track, “Time Out Of Mind”. So, the “Sultans Of Swing” singer got tapes from the band and began doing his homework. He didn’t have any chords or tabs to work off of. But as he explained to Guitar Player, he likely wouldn’t have used them.

“I could have been given the chords,” he explained. “But some of those fancier ones, I don’t know the names of, and probably couldn’t play. What I always try to do is respond to the song.”

And apparently, he responded the right way. Knopfler’s parts, though “painstaking” to record, ended up on the final version of “Time Out Of Mind”. “It was strange at first,” Knopfler said. “It seemed like such a rarified atmosphere. I was very pleased with the results.”

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