Laszlo Buring is a songwriter, guitarist and producer from the Netherlands who's slowly making a name for himself on YouTube. In May 2021 he hit the jackpot, releasing a video in which he played the solo from the Dire Straits' classic Sultans Of Swing, reimagining Mark Knopfler's fleet-fingered original part as it might have sounded had Pink Floyd written it.
A million views later, and Buring is still churning out the videos, taking one song and performing it in the the style of another. He's done a version of All Along The Watchtower, performed as if it was written by John Mayer. He's played What a Wonderful World in the style of Stevie Ray Vaughan. He's even performed an eight-minute jam that imagines the sonic splendour that might occur if David Gilmour and Mark Knopfler jammed together.
He clearly likes Knopfler, turning in Dire Straits-ish versions of Wonderful Tonight, The Sound Of Silence and Smoke On The Water, and for his latest trick he's covered Iron Maiden's The Trooper. The end result is akin to Sultans Of Swing, but still very much identifiable as The Irons' 1983 classic.
"Figured this little lick could be Knopflerified," says Buring. "Played on my Fender Vintera 50s mod Strat through a Fender Blues Junior."
"Whenever I click on one of those videos I know I'm gonna get a music masterpiece," writes commenter QuaX, while Davo Arriaga says, "That was sick, you should try to Knopflerify [Steve Vai's] Tender Surrender. I think it could work.
To check out more of Laszlo Buring's finger-picking wizardry, we suggest you tune into his YouTube channel.
