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A country singer and songwriter with a Southern rock heart, James Otto was born into a military family at the Fort Louis Army Base in Washington and grew up all over the U.S., including extended stays in North Dakota and Alabama. He started singing when he was only four years old, and learned both violin and saxophone before getting his first guitar at the age of 13. Both his father and grandfather were part-time musicians who played gigs in local bars, so music was hardly a foreign thing to Otto, but it wasn't until he spent time with his mother in Sand Mountain, AL, that he really discovered the joys of country music. After graduating from high school, Otto did a two-year stint in the U.S. Navy and, following his release from active service, he moved to Nashville in 1998, attending various songwriting nights at the clubs there, soon falling in with the so-called MuzikMafia, a feisty group of writers and musicians including Big & Rich and Gretchen Wilson, who became the central player...