Tribute Dire Straits

The Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute took place on 11 June 1988 at Wembley Stadium, London, and was broadcast across 67 countries to a worldwide audience of 600 million people. Mandela was still an imprisoned anti-apartheid revolutionary at the time of the concert, but the event is considered a pivotal step leading to the eventual release of Mandela, in February 1990, following 27 years of incarceration. Unlike the Live Aid concert a few years earlier, the 1988 concert was not primarily a fundraiser (even though it made £5million) but an event intended to raise the awareness worldwide of the injustice occurring under the apartheid regime in South Africa at the time.

The scent of childhood. The comforting lullaby of the parents. The first kiss. How great it would be if one could preserve the magical impressions of still young life forever! Not in the form of a discoloured snapshot, but in its entire emotional essence. As it were, as an "explosion in the heart", as the lyrics of the Dire Straits song "Romeo & Juliet" say.

You won’t be seeing Mark Knopfler in melodramatic newspaper headlines or on talent show panels. The much-travelled craftsman prefers to reside wherever the song takes him, from writing room to rehearsal space, recording studio to concert hall. He is, as tirelessly and inquisitively as ever, on the trail of some musical truth, just as he has been since the 45s of Ricky Nelson and Lonnie Donegan, or the playing of Hank Marvin and Duane Eddy, sent him down a path that led to 125 million record sales.

Though he’s been a recording artist for over two decades now, and has been writing songs for thirty years, The Straight Hits! is only Josh T. Pearson’s second solo album, and follows his acclaimed debut, 2011’s Last Of The Country Gentlemen and 2001’s The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads by his group Lift To Experience.