Bob Dylan first released his timeless classic “Blowin’ In The Wind” back in the summer of 1962 as part of his second album The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan on Columbia Records. The song contributed greatly to the growing opinion that Dylan was the voice for the social and political changes that were taking place at the time, and became one of the songwriters’ most popular and thought provoking songs, with Rolling Stone placing it at No.14 on it’s “500 Greatest Songs Of All Time” list in 2004.
Flash forward nearly 60 years and you’ll find the legendary producer and songwriter T Bone Burnett, who used to play guitar in Dylan’s band, teaming up with his old friend to record a brand new version of “Blowin’ In The Wind” to launch a new physical music format he dubs the “Ionic Original”. The new technology looks to be a hybrid of CDs and Vinyl and has been described as “The pinnacle of sound” by it’s creator Burnett. Going on to describe how the new medium would work in a recent press release noted by Pitchfork, he said that “It is lacquer painted onto an aluminium disc, with a spiral etched into it by music. This painting, however, has the additional quality of containing that music, which can be heard by putting a stylus into the spiral and spinning it”.
The new version of the song will be released as a one-of-a-kind disc at a Christie’s auction on July 7th 2022 in London, and is currently estimated to go for a bidding price of £600,000 – 1000,000. If someone said you can’t put a price on great music then tell that to the person looking to claim ownership of this unique piece of musical memorabilia later in the summer. The whoppingly lucrative auction is set to be an “Ionic Original” debut and the first time Dylan has tracked the song in 60 years. Fitting in nicely, if ten years short, with the Queens Platinum Jubilee, it is a cause for celebration that Bob Dylan and his mercurial talent should be back in the studio recording this most cherished material once again. I for one am looking forward to hearing how his vocal sounds years on, having walked down so many roads, and how well he teams up with Burnett, who despite a long history of musical collaboration, has never actually produced for the artist before. I doubt there should be much call for concern though, having written and produced the Grammy Award winning soundtracks to O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Cold Mountain, Walk The Line, and Crazy Heart I expect the results will be magical.
