The Absolute Sound Super Disc List TAS Harry Pearson Super LP List
"TAS Rated 5/5 Music, 4.5/5 Sonics
..."Down the Road Wherever" is the apex intersection of the Scottish-bred artist's ambition and craft, deftly entwining his mastery of locational songwriting flavored with Nashvillian strum and twang. "Back On the Dance Floor" entangles his patented gnarly guitar tone with a sensual background-vocal kiss during the choruses, courtesy of Irish enchantress Imelda May. "Just a Boy Away From Home" weaves subtle, back-in-the-mix keyboard fills from longtime collaborator Guy Fletcher, smooth brush drums, and melody-caressing horns alongside an acknowledged vocal an soloing shout out to Rodgers and Hammerstein's "You'll Never Walk Alone"... Wherever Knopfler's muse continues to roam, our ears must surely follow." - Mike Mettler, The Absolute Sound, January 2019
Mark Knopfler announced that his ninth solo album, Down the Road Wherever The 14-track follow-up to 2015’s Tracker .
A press release calls the record a collection of “unhurriedly elegant new Knopfler songs inspired by a wide range of subjects, including his early days in Deptford with Dire Straits, a stray football fan lost in a strange town, the compulsion of a musician hitching home through the snow, and a man out of time in his local greasy spoon.”
Knopfler explains, “‘Down The Road Wherever’ is a line from ‘One Song At A Time.’ I remember my pal Chet Atkins once saying that he picked his way out of poverty ‘one song at a time,’ and it just stuck in my mind. You get to an age where you’ve written quite a few songs. But Down The Road Wherever seems to be appropriate for me just because it’s what I’ve always done. I’ve always tried to make a record and also to keep my own geography happening in the songs.”
TRACKLIST:
SIDE 1
1. Trapper Man
2. Back On The Dance Floor
3. Nobody’s Child
SIDE 2
4. Nobody Does That
5. Good On You Son
6. Floating Away
SIDE 3
7. One Song At A Time
8. Heavy Up
9. Slow Learner
SIDE 4
10. Just A Boy Away From Home
11. My Bacon Roll
12. When You Leave
13. Matchstick Man