When they agreed the unwritten law that time-honored artists with brilliant track records get less creative as they go on, Mark Knopfler obviously wasn’t paying attention. He was too busy writing, recording, touring and enjoying it all.

So as we approach the end of the first decade of the 21st century, and other multi-million-sellers nudge their careers forward at a snail’s pace, Knopfler prepares to release his fifth studio album of the decade, and it’s another jewel.

Get Lucky, recorded at his award-winning British Grove Studios in west London and co-produced with longtime cohorts Chuck Ainlay and Guy Fletcher, is a beautifully crafted exploration of a lifetime of musical roots.

Fluently combining folk and blues with his original songwriting, the whole containing personalized British ingredients and vivid observational lyricism.

Gratefully seizing on this elongated hot streak of productivity, the Grammy Award-winning guitar hero of more than 30 years’ standing displays his usual flair for understatement.

“I just keep turning up,” he says. “That’s exactly what it is, and I think you appreciate it a lot more as you get older. I used to take it for granted when I was a kid. I don’t think I respected whatever talent I had enough -- I had to learn that. So now I just get behind the plough. That’s how things happen.”

<a href="http://earbender.com/blog/2009/8/9/mark-knopflers-get-lucky-due-on-915.html">continued</a>