[NutBrnHair]

James Otto Rattles the Charts With a No. 1 Single
After a Decade in Nashville, Singer-Songwriter Finally Has His Day
By Edward Morris

James Otto titled his new album Sunset Man, but he could have just as aptly dubbed it Persistent Man. The album has been nearly five years in the making, during which time Otto saw the careers of his buddies Big & Rich and Gretchen Wilson skyrocket. Now it looks like it's finally his turn.

The week it was released, Sunset Man hit the Billboard country albums chart at a resounding No. 2, just 1,400 copies shy of ousting George Strait's Troubadour from the peak. At the same time, Otto's lead single, "Just Got Started Lovin' You," was in the Top 5 and moving up, powered in no small part by a sexy, sweet-talkin' music video. And just Monday (May 5), Otto learned that "Just Got Started Lovin' You" has become his first No. 1 single.

Otto co-wrote nine of the album's 11 songs and co-produced it with the ubiquitous John Rich of Big & Rich and Jay DeMarcus of Rascal Flatts. He admits he didn't approach the project with any particular concept or organizing principle in mind.

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DeMarcus co-produced three cuts with Otto on Sunset Man. "The way I met Jay was that he started dating my wife's sister," Otto explains. "Amy and I had been together like a year and a half when Alison and Jay met. ... We started becoming friends, and then we started writing songs together. Eventually I asked him to do a demo session with me of a couple of songs that I had found and wanted to cut -- one that I'd written and one that he and I had written. Those tracks ended up being the songs on this record that he produced."

Besides various solo appearances this summer, Otto will also be running the road with Hank Williams Jr. and Lynyrd Skynyrd in the Rowdy Frynds tour and later with Brooks & Dunn and possibly Taylor Swift. But surely the sweetest situation for Otto will occur June 8 when he takes the stage at Nashville's mammoth LP Field to sing for the crowd gathered there for the CMA Music Festival.

"It's really exciting," he says. "I got to watch Big & Rich and Gretchen do the same thing the years their records took off. I was supposed to be on [the smaller] River Stages this year, but they invited me to come over to the big stage and play with the big boys."