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The first time I heard “Boots of Spanish Leather,” it was as if all of the oxygen had been drained from the room, suddenly replaced with the wavering golden longing of this one song. Only it wasn’t Dylan singing, it was my 14 year-old brother Robin, belting out these heart-worn lyrics as the afternoon spring sunlight streamed through rain-stained windows, illuminating a thousand dust flecks in my cluttered college apartment. Each verse further eclipsed any hint of a self-conscious adolescent, as his fingers moved nimbly over the fretboard. It was the first of many songs I’d hear him master in the short time after our father gave us both acoustic guitars.
But while I fumbled awkwardly through “Heart of Gold” and “Blackbird,” Robin climbed quickly skyward, up past the tree line, where the air was thin, and the expanse before him unfolded, unobstructed. It wasn’t long before he was crafting original material of his own, forsaking most other responsibilities in favor of hunkering down with his Martin and his best friend Skye Skjelset.
As most best friends are, Skye was along for the journey, picking up guitar around the same time, and the two—forsaking their sterile suburban surroundings just outside Seattle—ate lunch together in the science room, did their best to ignore high school, and immersed themselves in the music collections of their folks and the private world of songwriting in their basements.
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