Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. The rock outfit released their self-titled debut on June 9, 1978, via Vertigo Records, with its first single, "Sultans of Swing," ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Hugh McIntyre covers music, with a focus on the global charts. “Sultans of Swing” gives Dire Straits its first streaming hit in ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. In 1978, a song about a little-known pub band quietly transformed Dire Straits into international stars. "Sultans of Swing" became ...

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 ...

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 ...

In 1978, a song about a little-known pub band quietly transformed Dire Straits into international stars. "Sultans of Swing" became the band's breakthrough hit and eventually one of the defining rock ...