the guy fletcher career review
© vinten, graham e.

Currently of Rock Legends Dire Straits, and long term Mark Knopfler cohort. Born 24th May 1960. Married to Laurie-Ann, with one son, Max.

Keyboardist Fletcher had his first musical experiences when he was four years old, singing with his parents band "The Cameos", which he kept up later by singing in school concerts. His first gig was in a village hall in Berkshire at the age of 14 playing bass. After leaving school Guy went straight into the music business working as a runner for a music publishing company, and then went on to work in a recording studio. Various session and band work, including Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel, led to the Roxy Music "Avalon" tour in the early 80's and resulting live video "The High Road" of 1983.

Guy first worked with Knopfler during Marks "film soundtracks" era of 1984, when he worked solely with Mark on "The Princess Bride" and with John Illsley, Terry Williams and Mark Knopfler on "Cal". Guy also performed all the music on, "Last Exit To Brooklyn", and "Comfort and Joy" written by Knopfler at a later stage.

By this time Guy had performed as a session musician, supplying keyboards and backing vocals, on Aztec Camera's album "Knife", which Knopfler produced.

Guy then joined Dire Straits as a full time band member for recording the album Brothers In Arms, the success of which is famous. The Straits went on the enormous world tour after that, which saw almost every corner of the globe covered in '85/86, but finding time to hit the stage at Wembley for Live Aid. 1988 saw DS headline the 1988 birthday concert for Nelson Mandela, featuring Eric Clapton on second guitar.

1989/90 Guy performed and produced with Mark on the Notting Hillbillies album Missing....Presumed Having a Good Time. Mark originally was producing the album for old time friends Brendan Croker and Steve Phillips, but got involved in playing and called on Guy to play keyboards and then to help with production. Things escalated and the following tour of England got much larger than they had expected.

During this time Knopfler was also picking with Chet Atkins, for whom he had admired for a long time. This ended up with the album Neck and Neck for which Guy not only played keyboards, but was also credited for bass, drums and as the recording engineer in the studios at Nashville and London.

After these almost country influenced albums, Knopfler called back John Illsley, along with Guy and Alan Clark to put together a new set of songs for the On Every Street album. To which the producer credits went to the whole band this time, not just Knopfler. The following tour was large even by DS standards. After the tour Mark and Guy waded through the tapes of the concerts that had been recorded and the final outcome was the On The Night live album, which Mark and Guy produced, and Guy worked on the post-production.

After the OES tour Guy appeared on the ITV Motor Show in true rock star style, sunglasses and surrounded by fast cars. The item on the "96 club", a prestigious supercar club to which he is a member, showed Guy talking about the car he had just bought himself as a present, and how it was designed by Gordon Murray and Chris Craft, and had a 1000cc motorbike engine. He ended his little speech by saying how it was called the Rocket and "...it goes like one too!"

A while after the OES tour a Dire Straits Information Service newsletter said how Guy was possibly going on tour with Roger Daltry and then on tour with Bryan Ferry. The next newsletter four months later explained how the Daltry tour was being pushed back so far that they ended up overlapping with the Ferry rehearsals. So Guy opted for the Ferry project because of his previous work with Roxy Music and Ferry and subsequently went on tour 1994/5. Guy was also on television when Ferry performed on the "Danny Baker Show" in England. The show featured Ferry and his touring band playing, amongst others, the hit Jealous Guy.

Guy initialised a reunion of The Notting Hillbillies for a charity concert in London, to be performed in February '96. The Charity is a children's charity and all the tickets, price of which was well over stlg100 each, were sold out.

Guy provided keyboards for the Mark Knopfler solo album and tour. Knopfler spoke about Guy in an interview about his latest album Golden Heart:

"Yeah, well Guy Fletcher's been on everything I've done since 'Cal', really which was when I met him. He turned up outside the studio one day with a little keyboard under his arm and said 'hello', and we just got started on the 'Cal' soundtrack. He is the ever present Guy Fletcher. In fact he wasn't involved on the recording sessions but he's been involved in all the stuff that I did afterwards, and lots of fixing and lots of adding little parts, and he's just a wonderful talent, and he'll be an essential part of the road band".

In the credits for Golden Heart, Guy is credited with Keyboards and Backing Vocals and under Marks many thank-yous it finishes off with "and the inevitable Guy Fletcher".

During the build up to the Golden Heart tour Mark and Guy went to America to appear in the "David Letterman Show", and on the 6th of May 1996 Jools Holland presented a special concert by Mark which lasted an hour. Mark played constantly throughout the show, and played new songs from the Golden Heart album and old classics like "Walk of Life" and "Brothers In Arms". Guy was, as usual, providing Keyboards and Backing Vocals and, surprisingly, for the song "Done With Bonaparte" he left his keyboards and played rhythm guitar on an acoustic.

During the Golden Heart tour, Guy played the acoustic whenever the band played Done With Bonaparte. Richard Bennet, the rhythm guitarist of the Knopfler solo tour has formed a Hawaiian based band with Guy. He has also been teaching Guy how to play the Lap Steel guitar, much to Marks amusement.

September '96 saw more Notting Hillbillies concerts and Guy was back with all the members of the original band. Guy played his Lap Steel live for the first time at the Shepherds Bush Empire. On his way out of the venue he was asked about the future of Dire Straits. His reply said that there was no current plans for a Dire Straits album in the near future "But we haven't gone away".

By this time Guy had made several contributions to various albums, including Damian Wilsons 1997 album "Cosmas". He had paired up with Wilson before this, by playing in a band Wilson had fronted called "La Salle" which had included musicians from Jethro Tull and Whitesnake.

Other work included Heather Nova's 1998 album Siren. He was credited with playing numerous instruments, including a Tamboura. His description of the instrument was that "it is like an Indian Sitar, but I played it through a Marshall stack!".

More Hillbillies concerts in '98 saw Guy behind the keyboards, acoustic and lap steel guitar yet again, this time at The Ronnie Scott's jazz clubs in Birmingham and London.

Guy worked in the recording studios in both Nashville and London on the new Mark Knopfler solo album. Latest news states the recording, fixing and overdubbing will go on in the mean time and the album will be released spring 2000.

Guy appeared on British TV on Monday 19th April 1999. He was playing a Wurlitzer piano for Jimmy Nail's band, promoting his latest single and album on the ITV program This Morning. Guy also appears on the album, called "Tadpoles in a Jar".

The Hillbillies returned to Ronnie Scott's, London once again in July '99.

The multi-talented keyboard player is British and first met up with Mark Knopfler for the soundtrack of 'Cal' in 1983 and then went on to collaborate on the soundtracks for 'Comfort And Joy', 'The Princess Bride' and 'The Last Exit To Brooklyn'. The duo also worked together on albums with Randy Newman and Chet Atkins. Guy was a member of The Notting Hillbillies with Knopfler and joined Dire Straits for both the 'Brothers In Arms' and 'On Every Street' albums and tours.