Warner Bros. 1507
Producer: Albert Grossman
Track listing: Very Last Day / Hush-A-Bye / Long Chain On / Rocky Road / Tell It on the Mountain / Polly Von / Stewball / All My Trials / Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right / Freight Train / Quit You Low Down Ways / Blowin’ in the Wind
November 2, 1963
5 weeks
Peter, Paul and Mary was important for introducing the American public to the new breed of folk music. However, the trio’s third album, In the Wind, was even more significant. It featured three songs written by a young, up-and-coming singer-songwriter named Bob Dylan.
Like Peter, Paul and Mary, Dylan was part of the New York folk scene, and he also shared manager Albert Grossman with the trio. Yet in 1962, the same year Peter, Paul and Mary went to Number One, his self-titled debut album failed to chart. On September 7, 1963, Dylan made his album chart debut when The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan entered at number 125. Less than two months earlier, on October 26, 1963, In the Wind had debuted at number 12 on the Top LP’s chart. Both albums contained versions of “Blowin’ in the Wind.”
Says Peter Yarrow, “Bob Dylan was in Greenwich Village when we were, writing songs at places like the Kettle of Fish and the White Horse. He was a friend. When we heard the songs, it was immediate. We knew they were something we wanted to sing.”
However, Peter, Paul and Mary didn’t fully realize how important Dylan would become. “When you’re living it, you don’t look at tomorrow that way,” Yarrow says. “We sensed that something exciting was going on, but when you fall in love you don’t think about how long it’s going to last, you just love every moment. By that same sense, we knew that Bobby Dylan was just about the best writer we had ever heard of that genre.”
“Blowin’ in the Wind” was just one of three Dylan songs that appeared on the album. Dylan’s original of “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” was also included on The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, but his rendition of “Quit Your Low Down Ways” would not be legitimately released until 1991, when it was included on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991 boxed set.
Peter, Paul and Mary’s versions of “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” were released well in advance of In the Wind. The former, released as the follow-up to “Puff the Magic Dragon,” became the trio’s second consecutive single to reach number two, while the latter reached number nine. The success of the two singles, as well as the trio’s previous recordings, were enough to blow In the Wind to the top spot in its second week on the chart. Ironically, the album it bumped from the summit was Peter, Paul and Mary, which had returned to Number One a year after originally reaching that lofty perch.
Dylan, however, would have to be patient. Despite the exposure he gained from Peter, Paul and Mary’s hit cover of “Blowin’ in the Wind,” not to mention the notoriety he generated from his own work throughout the balance of the 1960s, he would not top the album chart until more than a decade later, with Blood on the Tracks.
THE TOP FIVE
Week of November 2, 1963
1. In the Wind, Peter, Paul and Mary
2. Peter, Paul and Mary, Peter, Paul and Mary
3. Ingredients in a Recipe for Soul, Ray Charles
4. Elvis’ Golden Records, Vol. 3, Elvis Presley
5. The Second Barbra Streisand Album, Barbra Streisand