Jack Sonni Dies: Guitarist On Smash Dire Straits Album Who Played At Live Aid Was 68
deadline.comJack Sonni, an American guitarist who played on Dire Straits’ mammoth 1985 album Brothers in Arms and was onstage with the band at Live Aid that year, has died at 68.
The group shared the news on social media but did not give any details. Born John Sonni on December 9, 1954, in Indiana, PA, Sonni had been playing in the band Leisure Class in New York during the late 1970s when he met the Knopfler brothers, who’d had an international hit debut album and lead single with “Sultans of Swing.” He was asked to join the British group some years later, after Dave Knopfler had left, and playing guitar synthesizer on the track “The Man’s Too Strong” for Brothers in Arms, a worldwide smash that became one of the most popular albums of the ’80s.
Recorded all digitally as the CD era kicked in, the album’s nine tracks including the global behemoth “Money for Nothing.” In an unusual move, its compact disc and cassette releases featured longer version of several songs, but “The Man’s Too Strong” ran the same length on all formats.
It was not among the album’s five singles. Brothers in Arms is the eighth-best-selling album in UK history and has sold more than 9 million copies in the U.S.
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