The 2021 recording of the 1962 classic was produced by T Bone Burnett in Los Angeles and recorded directly onto an acetate record, called an Ionic Recording, which is considered to produce the most superior sound money can buy on a typical record player.

T Bone Burnett has stressed the exclusivity of the pressing and insisted it’s purpose as a rejection of mass consumerism, recently telling Variety “I think it is important to know for people who are concerned about the exclusivity of what we are doing. An Ionic Original is not a ‘copy.’ It is an original recording. We are not contriving scarcity. This is actually scarce. It is a unique, handmade, original recording. We have all been conditioned to accept the terms of and react to things from the frame of mass production. This is not that.”

Burnett has also commented on how highly he prides this particular recording, going as far as to describe it as the “the best record I’ve ever made in my life“, a pretty wild statement considering the renowned producers previous feats. He has won multiple Grammy’s and accolades in his illustrious career so far, writing and producing scores for films like “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”, “Cold Mountain”, “Walk the Line”, and “Crazy Heart”, as well as contributing to the work of artists such as Robert Plant, Counting Crows, Sam Phillips, and Roy Orbison. So to put this to the top of his list of achievements is quite something and a mark of how passionately he stands by the project and it’s extraordinary price tag.

“This is a full rebellion against mass consumerism,” Burnett concluded with Variety. “It’s not that I don’t want people to hear it. I think this is the best record I’ve ever made in my life, so I want everybody to hear it. For my ego and my sense of ‘I would like everybody to like me,’ this is a sacrifice. I mean, you heard it. Bob sounds good. The band sounds good. The song’s great. And I have to say, I think it’s the best thing that I’ve ever been involved in. It’s the best singer, the best song, great musicians, the sound is killer. I’ll say this: I’ve never done anything better, to be sure.”

One lucky, and apparently very wealthy, listener has walked away with the pressing, being the only person bar a few members of the press granted access to listen to it, it is now down to he or she, their identity being undisclosed, whether they will ever let anyone else tune in. Being a big Dylan fan myself, I hope for a leak one day, it feels inevitable in this day and age, but the purist in me also hopes that it will forever hang on the mystery buyers wall, a temptation to whomever gazes upon it.

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.