Bob Dylan's first new recording of the iconic 'Blowin In The Wind' sells for $1.7 mn at Christie's

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind

The answer is blowin' in the wind… 

It’s 60 years since Bob Dylan recorded the iconic song Blowin' in the Wind on July 9, 1962 for his second album The Freewheelin Bob Dylan. He entered the studio again in 2021 to re-record the song with his friend, Joseph Henry ‘T Bone’ Burnett III, the Grammy and Oscar winning composer, musician and producer. Unlike Dylan's original release, which achieved platinum status, only a single copy of this new recording of Blowin' in the Wind was offered on the groundbreaking new audio medium: Ionic Original. And last week it sold for $1.7 million in London at Christie’s The Exceptional Sale. 

This ‘Ionic Original’ disc is the first recording to utilise this patented technology from Burnett’s company, NeoFidelity, Inc. The auction of this unique lot – in Bob Dylan's 60th anniversary year as a recording artist – marks a first in music history: the new recording of Bob Dylan’s seminal song is a landmark moment and Burnett noted that the technology used to create the Ionic Original disc “advances the art of recorded sound and marks the first breakthrough in analogue sound reproduction in more than 70 years, achieving dramatic improvements in listening experience and durability.”  

"To work with such an incredibly important and groundbreaking advance in analogue playback technology is a tremendous honour. We are excited that this is just the beginning for this amazing new opportunity for recording artists to work with T Bone and NeoFidelity to reset the value of music," said Peter Klarnet, Christie’s Senior Specialist, Americana, Books and Manuscripts. 

“Marshall McLuhan said that a medium surrounds a previous medium and turns the previous medium into an art form, as film did with novels, as television did with film, as the internet has done with television, and as digital has done with analogue.  With Bob Dylan’s new version of Blowin’ In The Wind, our first Ionic Original archival analogue disc, we have entered and aim to help develop a music space in the fine arts market,” said T Bone Burnett, Founder of NeoFidelity Inc. and multi-Grammy-winning producer.  

“I trust and hope it will mean as much to whomever acquired it today at Christie’s Exceptional Sale as it does to all of us who made it, and that they will consider it and care for it as a painting or any other singular work of art,” he added.