This iconic guitar appeared on the cover of one of the most successful albums ever – but what’s the story behind it?

The brand new issue of Classic Rock magazine features Dire Straits on the cover. We look back on the story behind their mega-successful 1985 album Brothers In Arms, featuring brand new interviews with guitarist/singer Mark Knopfler, bassist John Illsley and keyboard player Graham Fletcher.

The 1980s was the decade of the blockbuster album. From AC/DC’s Back In Black and Bruce Springsteen’s Born In The USA to Bon Jovi’s Slippery When Wet and Guns N’ Roses’ Appetite For Destruction, countless albums racked up sales in the tens of millions.

One of the most unlikely success stories of the era came in the shape of an unfashionable band from the UK. Dire Straits were formed in 1977 by brothers Mark and David Knopfler plus bassist Illsley and drummer Pick Withers, releasing their self-titled debut album the following year.

Over the next few years, they released a string of albums that notched up success on both sides of the Atlantic, including 1980’s Making Movies and 1982’s Love Over Gold.

But everything would change with their fifth album, Brothers In Arms. Released in May 1985, and propelled by the hit singles Money For Nothing and Walk Of Life, it turned Dire Straits into unlikely MTV stars and helped popularise the relatively new Compact Disc as a format.

Brothers In Arms also featured one of the most iconic album covers of the era: a shiny 1937 National Style O resonator guitar held against a blue sky – an image that has become as iconic as the album itself.

The cover was a happy accident. An American portrait photographer, Deborah Feingold, had flown out to Montserrat to take promotional pictures of the band for the record company. She just so happened to take a couple of frames of her assistant holding Knopfler’s resonator guitar up to a sunset, intended as nothing more than test shots. This impromptu image was chosen as the eventual album cover.

It wasn’t a random choice. Even more than a Fender Strat, the National Style 0 resonator is the guitar most associated with Knopfler’s work in Dire Straits. It dates to around 1936/37, and it hides a few details that might not be obvious at first glance, such as the right-hand F-hole, which conceals a jack socket for an instrument cable so the guitar can be plugged in and its internal pickup can be used. Due to its position, only right-angle jacks can be used, for obvious reasons

National’s Style 0 resonator debuted in 1930 and continued in production until 1942, when demand for resonators was waning during the war years. The Style O came in several cosmetically quite different variations, but it was based on a brass body that initially had a plain nickel finish, then with a striking ‘lightning bolt’ design, with further variations following thereafter. The Brothers guitar is a Variation 7 model, with two occupants in the boat depicted on its reverse, rather than the single occupant shown on the similar but earlier Variation 6.

The palm trees on the front of the Variation 7 also had visible coconuts, which were absent on the superficially similar Variation 6 model that preceded it. Most Variation 7s had a tortoiseshell-style Lucite scratchplate, which, as on Knopfler’s, was often removed. A further difference from earlier Variations is the solid, not slotted, headstock with a curved logo at its peak.

It was no mere prop, however, and is still used extensively today for studio and live work – Mark uses it to play the intro to Romeo And Juliet, for example.

Read the full story behind Dire Straits’ Brothers In Arms album in the brand new issue of Classic Rock, onsale now. Order it online and have it delivered straight to your door.