Bob Dylan’s first new studio recording of Blowin’ In The Wind since 1962 has sold for £1,482,000, well ahead of estimates.
The recording was made during a special session with T Bone Burnett, on the producer’s recently announced Ionic Original disc format.
This Ionic Original disc is the first recording to utilise the technology from Burnett’s company, NeoFidelity. The auction of the unique lot took place in Bob Dylan's 60th anniversary year as a recording artist.
Burnett noted at the time the sale was first announced 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.”
The format combines some of the material used in both CD and vinyl. It can be played using a stylus.
Dylan first recorded the song for Columbia on July 9, 1962 for his second album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. He entered the studio again in 2021 to re-record the song to be produced as a single copy.
The 10-inch disc bears the etched signatures of Bob Dylan, T Bone Burnett and mastering engineer Jeff Powell.
Peter Klarnet, Christie’s senior specialist, Americana, books and manuscripts, said: "We are so pleased with the excellent result this evening for the Ionic Original disc of Bob Dylan's first new studio recording of Blowin' In The Wind since 1962. 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."
T Bone Burnett said: “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. 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.”
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