(Credits: Far Out / Sky UK Limited)

After a combined total of over a century spent in the music business, it was high tide that the two Geordie buddies, Mark Knopfler and Brian Johnson, headed out on the road for a bit of a skylark. Their story to this juncture has been much the same as many working-class musicians, as the forthcoming Sky Arts series, Johnson and Knopfler’s Music Legends, displays—offering an overarching journey of how humble souls with a hope to emulate their heroes eventually hit the lofty heights of legendary status themselves.

They find that the first chapter always begins the same. Life in Newcastle was irrevocably vivified when the blues began to blare out of transistor radios. It was piped over from the Mississippi to the Tyne, prompting Johnson, the future AC/DC frontman, ironically still clad in his school uniform, to yell, “Whaaat the fuck”, in a juvenile version of his distinctive drawl. Tracks like ‘Black, Brown and White’ were both figuratively and literally formulated thousands of miles away from Blighty, but the songs enamoured the youngsters with thrilling resonance all the same. For a generation whose hopes had been dashed by the scourge of the Second World War, these songs were something new and vital.

The sounds of Big Bill Broonzy, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Mahalia Jackson and more sounded off with stark defiance that inspired a sense of a brighter future for the would-be musicians listening at home on crackly radios. As Johnson and Knopfler found while chatting to the Welsh legend in a working man’s club, this was all the more important for Tom Jones. At the age of 12, he was struck down by TB and needed to spend two whole years in bed. The radio became a companion and a window to something wider and wholly more wonderful than his bedroom in the valleys. Jones’ future was zapped into action by the electric pulse of heroes like Jerry Lee Lewis, and as soon as he recovered, he hungered to showcase his own version on the various social club stages that the Valleys had to offer.

These humble origin stories are a constant fascination for Knopfler and Johnson throughout the series. Mostly, when journalists and fans get chatting with musicians, they want to know what it was like to headline Glastonbury or some other Herculean feat, but it would appear that peers always want to probe into how things simply got started. “It doesn’t really make any difference where you’re playing,” Knopfler recalls regarding his own early memories of the stage. “You’re on a mission up there. You’re there to slay the dragon.”

“All you have really is your t-shirt and a guitar, and maybe you’ve got your band there,” he continues, failing to mention trousers, summoning the unfortunate image of a rocking Winnie the Pooh aesthetic. “That’s all you’re taking with you. So, you’ve got to really want to be there.” In this regard, those with a burning desire are whittled from the masses with a mere passing fantasy. But more so than that, the cream rises from the crop when there is little artificial support to augment raw talent. “So, if you’re talking about seeing someone early like Sam Fender,” Knopfler says about another Geordie guest on the series, “something tells you that you’re obviously dealing with the real thing.”

However, the duo is also aware that the real thing needs careful nurturing, which leads to a second chapter of sorts on any musician’s journey. For Knopfler, this entailed endless trips down to London to try and cut his teeth in the raucous blues clubs once the likes of Jarrow Social Club had been all but conquered—trips that eventually prompted nostalgic songs like ‘Southbound Again’ when he eventually conquered the world stage too with Dire Straits. For Johnson, it was a little more perilous. He had suffered so many hard knocks in the music industry that when AC/DC came calling, he nearly shunned the chance of an audition in favour of making a go at the garage he had just taken a hefty mortgage out on.

In essence, great talents are common, but there is a reason legends are rare. With this in mind, Knopfler comments: “Sam [Fender] is just going to be huge. Sam’s wonderful. Brian and I both think he’s great, and he’s gonna go a long way, if he takes care of himself. And if the gods of music take care of him, or the gods of the music business, take care of him,” he stresses with an aura of caution.

“I mean, it’s not a done deal. There’s a long way to go in terms of survival. I literally do mean that. I think Brian and I would both agree that if we’d been 18 years old when we cracked it, neither of us would be alive right now,” Knopfler continued with a stern sense of sincerity. “It’s a serious business.” Alas, they have both steadily reached the stage where they can, in fact, make it look like a lark, embarking on pursuits like trying to find the Loch Ness Monster by drunkenly blasting fireworks over the Scottish expanse, pissed up on cheap lager during a break in their once extensive touring schedule.

However, hi-jinks aside, there are plenty of moments in a musician’s journey to the top where they simply have to pinch themselves. Tom Jones, for instance, went from idolising Jerry Lee Lewis while stricken in his bedroom to performing a duet with him on American television. “I’m talking about the Jerry Lee Lewis, the killer, and it’s a 50-50 duet all the way,” Knopfler explains, suddenly overcome by second-hand awe.

Likewise, Johnson talks about the moment Nile Rodgers told him about seeing “the most immaculately dressed man ever” in Studio 54, only for that same man later down the line to approach Rodgers himself and play him the ‘Let’s Dance’ riff that he needed a hand with, the pair eventually crafting it into his biggest hit. “These stories and moments are just priceless,” Johnson says from the perspective of an artist who has been privy to many moments like this to call his own.

These moments are part of the lore of the legendary Knopfler and Johnson that their new series adds to—two artists who have reached a pinnacle that now allows them to have a bit of fun with their revered peers while still gathering greater insight along the way. This music industry might be brutal, but in these trying times, two daft lads simply having a jaunt and lapping up the culture that they love reminds you of what it’s all about. “That’s essentially how this whole thing came about,” Johnson agrees.

“A while back, we were filming something up at Whitley Bay, and we were having such a good time that Mark just said, ‘You know, it’s a shame that we couldn’t just walk all the way up the coast stopping at the pubs and churches and what have you, all the way up to Druridge Bay, just talking away about our times in music. You know, because we’ve got so much more to say’. So, off that back of that conversation, we just spread our wings a little bit, and said, ‘Well, let’s go out into the world and meet these legends of music.” That’s an idea that led them to meeting Tom Jones, Sam Fender, Cyndi Laupner, Nile Rodgers, Carlos Santana and Emmylou Harris on their latest whistle-stop tour of the music world.

Johnson and Knopfler’s Music Legends will air on Sky Arts, Freeview and NOW from April 25th.

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