True Love Will Never Fade by Mark Knopfler (cover)

[Glennwillow]

I have always loved the old rock and roll feel of this song, with it's sort of Elvis Presley chord progression. But what really makes this song come alive is Mark Knopfler's beautiful Stratocaster playing behind the acoustic guitar and in between the mellow vocal line. I hope you enjoy my take on this song.

Thank you for listening, and I hope all are well out there.

- Glenn

[islandguitar]

Really nice, Glenn! Just a very easy listen....a really poignant song and fine singing and playing.
Thanks for sharing this one!!

Enjoy the day!
Fred

[jricc]

That's a beautiful vocal Glenn. One of my favorites of yours. The song sounds tailor made for your voice.
Well played, I really enjoyed this.

[Glennwillow]

Originally Posted by islandguitar

Really nice, Glenn! Just a very easy listen....a really poignant song and fine singing and playing.
Thanks for sharing this one!!

Enjoy the day!
Fred

Thank you Fred!

I'm so pleased you felt this came across well. It was a relatively easy song to do, although I did take a few days to practice that Strat part.

Thank you for your kind comments and for your time. I hope all is well for you and your family.

- Glenn

[Glennwillow]

Originally Posted by jricc

That's a beautiful vocal Glenn. One of my favorites of yours. The song sounds tailor made for your voice.
Well played, I really enjoyed this.

Thanks so much for your kind comments, Joe!

Much appreciated. Singing a Mark Knopfler song keeps the voice pretty mellow, in a fairly low range, so it's easy to listen to as long as a person is reasonably close to the correct pitch. Thanks for your comments on this.

It's interesting... we each hear the things that really appeal to us. For me, this song is all about the old-fashion, clean sound of the Strat with a little tremolo.

I hope all is well for you, Joe.

- Glenn

[started with 1]

Great one Glenn.

I really enjoyed the vibe: MK's tone is so unique and you captured the essence of it with the strat and the tremolo. Great playing and production. And the vocals were right on too! (And my younger son and I wrote a song with the same 4 chords running for both verse and chorus.)

[jricc]

Originally Posted by Glennwillow

It's interesting... we each hear the things that really appeal to us. For me, this song is all about the old-fashion, clean sound of the Strat with a little tremolo.

I hope all is well for you, Joe.

- Glenn

Don't get me wrong Glenn, I heard and dug your Strat work, you nailed the out of phase Knopfler tone, but I was just taken with your fab vocal.
I hope you and yours are good too.

[Mortimer Nelson]

For me this song is more Jimmy Buffet than Elvis, and your version adds even more of a gentle Hawaiian breeze to the original. Beautifully done, Glenn.

[raysachs]

I'm all out of superlatives Glenn. As someone else said, this tune is a perfect match with your voice. I'm not familiar with Knopfler's version, but I have trouble imagining him singing it better, or even as well, given his vocal limitations. Nice guitar work too. I'm not sure it has an old "rock 'n roll" feel, but I know what you're getting at with that comment. It sounds like a pretty old ballad to me, not much rockin. But it has the feel of the old time rock 'n roll era for sure. Thanks for another great listen.

-Ray

[reeve21]

Beautiful job, Glenn! To my ear it definitely has that early 60’s pre Beatles feel, reminded me of the Everly Brothers a little bit. Bravo!!!

Have you heard the album MK released last month? I’ve only heard the title song, as it is getting some airplay on satellite radio. It’s a nice tune, too—One Deep River.

[Glennwillow]

Originally Posted by started with 1

Great one Glenn.

I really enjoyed the vibe: MK's tone is so unique and you captured the essence of it with the strat and the tremolo. Great playing and production. And the vocals were right on too! (And my younger son and I wrote a song with the same 4 chords running for both verse and chorus.)

Hi Joe!

Thanks so much for your comments and your continued kind support on the AGF. Much appreciated!

And thanks for your observations about the MK tone. I based what I played for the Strat tones on what was on his "Kill to Get Crimson" CD from 2007. That studio recording is below:



Mark Knopfler did a live video where he played a different lead part. You'll also notice that he played the guitar with a flat pick and used the tremolo bar quite a bit. That video is below:



I tried to play the Strat solo with a bare thumb and really lacked the attack MK was getting on his Strat, so I put on my thumb pick and played it that way, which worked better. So that explains the flat pick MK used. I could hear the use of the tremolo bar on some of the Strat stuff, so I used what made sense to me.

Regarding the acoustic guitar, I used my Gibson AJ and played it with the flesh of my thumb on the down stroke and the flesh of my index finger on the up stroke. On the live video you see MK's acoustic player using a D-45 and strumming the guitar just as I did to get that softer sound.

I did not even look for the live performance of this song until I had pretty much finished this video, but I was gratified to see that a lot of stuff I heard on the original recording tended to guide me fairly accurately in how I played the parts of this song.

That is very cool that you and your younger son put a song together! Using a standard chord progression is always a good idea for a project like that. Good for you both! Over the years, music was the thing that managed to keep me connected to my son, who turns 49 this summer, regardless of what other kinds of problems we might have been having over the years. Music, I really think, brings people of all ages together.

- Glenn

[UKPhil]

Lovely job Glenn.

[Glennwillow]

Originally Posted by jricc

Don't get me wrong Glenn, I heard and dug your Strat work, you nailed the out of phase Knopfler tone, but I was just taken with your fab vocal.
I hope you and yours are good too.

Thank you again, Joe,

I'm very appreciative that you felt I did well with the vocal. And I am doing pretty well and my family is well. So all is good.

I hope the same for you.

- Glenn

[Glennwillow]

Originally Posted by Mortimer Nelson

For me this song is more Jimmy Buffet than Elvis, and your version adds even more of a gentle Hawaiian breeze to the original. Beautifully done, Glenn.

Hi Mortimer!

Yes, I can hear Jimmy Buffet with a chord progression like that! Absolutely.

And now that you mention it, there is a little Hawaiian breeze tone in that strat sound.

I'm so glad you enjoyed this! Thanks for the kind words Mort!

And I hope all is well for you these days.

- Glenn

[Glennwillow]

Originally Posted by raysachs

I'm all out of superlatives Glenn. As someone else said, this tune is a perfect match with your voice. I'm not familiar with Knopfler's version, but I have trouble imagining him singing it better, or even as well, given his vocal limitations. Nice guitar work too. I'm not sure it has an old "rock 'n roll" feel, but I know what you're getting at with that comment. It sounds like a pretty old ballad to me, not much rockin. But it has the feel of the old time rock 'n roll era for sure. Thanks for another great listen.

-Ray

Hi Ray,

Thanks for your kind and supportive comments. They are very much appreciated.

Regarding the vocals, yes, Mark Knopfler's songs don't require a huge range and so his stuff for me is easy to sing. It does fit very much in my range and is very comfortable.

Regarding rock and roll, I guess for me, I think of rock and roll as something different from rock. I think of the early stuff, like Everly Bros and Buddy Holly. And when I think of Elvis, I often think of his movies, where the stuff he sang was very mellow, quite different from Hound Dog or Jailhouse Rock. I remember one song in particular used exactly the C-F-Dm-G progression in one of his movies.

I am probably 10 years older than you are so my impressions of early rock and roll are likely quite different from yours. We each hear something different in music depending on our age and experiences. I guess I should have been more careful about the descriptions I used.

I did put up some MK videos above in this thread in case you'd like to hear Mark Knopfler do this song a couple of different ways. He does sound pretty ragged in his live version of this song. But, man, he is such a tasty guitar player.

Take care Ray and be well!

- Glenn