You're listening to a podcast from the BBC World Service. This is Hard Talk with me, Stephen Sacker.

Thanks for downloading this edition of the program. I do hope you enjoy it.

My guest today is that unusual creature, a rock and roll superstar whose music has sold tens of

millions of records, whose guitar licks are familiar all around the world,

who has worked closely with all-time great like Bob Dylan,

and yet, who is so low-key, you probably wouldn't recognize him if you passed him in the street.

And that is just the way Mark Knopfler likes it.

As lead guitarist and frontman with dire straits

in their platinum-selling heyday in the 80s and 90s, he never tried to be cool. Maybe because

success came to him relatively late in his late 20s rather than teens. And it was the songwriting

that was always his first love,

perhaps a reflection on his earlier job as a newspaper reporter. Now in his late 60s,

Knopfler is still writing, performing and touring, now as a solo artist. Along the ways,

he's worked with legends like Bob Dylan, Tina Turner and Emmy Lou Harris.

He is the antithesis of the larger-than-life rock star cliché.

He's stayed low-key and grounded.

How on earth did he pull that off?

Well, Mark Knopfler joins me now.

Welcome to Hard Talk. Thank you for having me.

You've been writing music for many, many decades now. You're still at it, writing, singing, touring around the world.

How different does it feel now from back in your youth, making it big in the late 70s and early 80s?

I feel older. If there are steps that you take and the touring would be the final one

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