Not his first rodeo
James Otto has been around the block a time or two. “Just Got Started Lovin’ You” is the man’s first major hit, but by the time it came out, Otto was 34 years old, with a failed debut album and a botched major-label record deal already under his belt.
In the early part of this decade, the just-arrived-in-Nashville Otto inked a deal with Mercury records, and promptly headed to the studio to lay down the tracks for his debut. It didn’t take long for his illusions to be shattered. A&R folks from the label began micromanaging the recording sessions, suggesting songs, laying down production ultimatums and generally “diluting whatever vision I had for the record,” says Otto.
When Otto’s 2004 debut, “Days of Our Lives,” was released, he’d already failed to hit the upper echelons of the charts with a pair of singles. When the third failed to do any better, Mercury abruptly and unceremoniously dropped Otto.
He’s not bitter, though, which is both refreshing and surprising. “I just figure what happened is what was supposed to happen,
and maybe I just wasn’t ready yet,” he says. “It’s all a learning experience, and if it led me to where I am now, with an album that I’m completely proud of and I think really represents who I am and what I want to do — well, then it’s all good.”
It hasn’t hurt Otto that he is a member of the loose collective of rebel country artists known as the MuzikMafia. In broad terms, this group of artists — headed by John Rich of Big & Rich fame, and also including the likes of Gretchen Wilson, Cowboy Troy and Rascal Flatts — adheres to a more inclusive conception of country music, one that has room for rock, soul, R&B and pop in equal measures. It also looks out for its own — MuzikMafia members cowrote and performed with Otto for some of the songs that comprise “Sunset Man,” and Rich himself produced a few cuts.
Still, it’s apparent that whatever Otto has gotten, career-wise, he’s earned. The hard way.
“You have to go through some failure, I believe, if you’re going to know what success is worth,” he says. “You have to learn who you aren’t, and what you won’t do, before you know who you are. It’s been worth it, every single thing that’s happened, because at the end of the day, I know who I am now. I can trust my own instincts.”
— Jeff Miers
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