Winding up the wayback machine it's 198? and guitar player magazine has the tabs for Sultans of Swing,,,oh boy. I worked on it but never really made it sing. What he did then and has done throughout his career is a muted percussive ghost note thumb/index thing just before hitting a note that rings loud. Chet Atkins really liked that percussive ability that Knopfler adds. Song for Sonny has it big time.

Ya da yada. OK here are three Youtube vids.

1. live electric with band https: www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DMLnoyk6R0

2. live acoustic not a stellar performance but fair camera work on his hands that you have to patiently take note of:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daYRTZtqbgk

3. This one's the real gem, an amazing tutorial from a Russian player who knocks it way over the fence...warning you'll wear out your replay button.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9VXCQT97Uk


Try these out.

Wow, you da man, thanks for these!

That snap percussive thing is something so idiosyncratic that I won't even attempt to try to nail it, but in my defense I'm playing pretty much the way Knopfler plays it except for the "black cat  - - - cadillac" part where he goes up 5 or 6 frets while I'm still playing the same notes down at the capo. Sorry Mark, you're doing it wrong . . . :winkin:

I haven't played that song in years and my own YouTube video is so out of sync it's of no help. Surely somewhere I still have the original 9 year old video on a hard drive somewhere. Gonna take a deep dive tonight and see . . .