Poster
George Borowski, The Little Big Band
Green Room
23rd March 1992

“That's 'Guitar George' as name-checked in the Dire Straits song Sultans of Swing. He played a blinding set in Rochdale last year that I filmed. Must get it up on youtube one day soon...”

“This artifact should be linked to The Little Big Band (Rob Gray) too.”

“Do I recall reading that Dire Straits ( and was it Guitar George also?) played at the Stiff/Chiswick new bands night at Rafters at which Joy Division hooked up with Tony Wilson and Rob Gretton? Or am I making that up??”

“you'll be saying Dire Straits nearly signed to Factory next!”

“FAC No! And I'll spare you the old "Dire Straits are joining up with Chris Rea" joke as well.

I found this on google though - the "guitar george" thing happened at Rafters. Not sure if this was the aforementioned night though??


"George Borowski will probably always be doomed to have every review mention the fact that he is THE Guitar George mentioned in a certain song by Dire Straits. Well, this is no different, George used to be in Manchester band The Out, who opened for Straits at a place called Rafters. Apparently Mark Knopfler loved George’s guitar sound and asked why he didn’t play solos, to which George replied that he couldn’t, he only knew chords. The rest is history. "”

“good work!”

“the rest is urban myth! The Rafters gig was a year after the release of 'that' song!”

“Interesting. What is it Tony Wilson says? "Never let the truth get in the way of a good story" Something like that.”

“My dad was in The Out! He was the bass guitarist (chris Daniel) and believe me, the dire straits song has nothing to do with George”

“but it says so on a poster i saw! it must be true!”

“I agree with claire81181 but even without the spurious link, George's music is great and he still keeps belting out the tunes!”