Nuclear War and Bob Dylan, Artistic War and Robbie Williams

Music Today: On Thursday, December 4, 2014, in today's music program, you will hear about two news items from the music world: the auction of handwritten manuscripts by legendary American composer and singer Bob Dylan and the release of an independent album by Robbie Williams. Today, the handwritten manuscripts of two old songs by Bob Dylan are being auctioned at Christie's. According to Rolling Stone magazine, experts estimate the price of these two manuscripts at the auction to be between thirty to fifty thousand dollars each. These songs were published in 1962 but were never used to create music and lyrics. According to The New York Times, the 73-year-old artist had gifted both songs to Izzy Young, the founder of the New York Folk Music Center. One of these songs shares the name with the center and was written at Young's request, where Bob Dylan spent countless days listening to music and studying. The second song is titled 'Get Away, Bomb!' and the 11-time Grammy-winning artist wrote it in protest against nuclear war. The manuscript of this song had previously been auctioned in London but did not sell. The owner of these two manuscripts, Izzy Young, emigrated to Sweden years ago and intends to use the proceeds from this auction to establish another folk music center in Stockholm. Robbie Williams, the British singer, unexpectedly released an album titled 'Under the Radar, Volume One' this week simultaneously with his former group Take That, which contains unreleased works from previous years. Williams' only action to announce the album was the release of a short personal message. Barlow stated that he was aware of Williams' intention to release unreleased works in an album but was surprised by the release of the collection this week. According to the Mirror website, Gary Barlow, a member of the group, compares Williams' album competition with Take That's album '3' to the artistic war between the bands Blur and Oasis.