Many folks in the entertainment industry tell newcomers they shouldn't have a back-up plan; the business is so hard to break into that if you have a Plan B, it's a sure bet that Plan B will eventually be Plan A.

A back-up plan worked for James Otto, though. Instead of being a way out of the business, it just demonstrated how serious he was about music. His Plan B was hatched as a teenager, when his schoolwork was suffering because he spent so much time playing the guitar.

His father, Jerry, locked the instrument away and told James he wouldn't return it until James' grades improved. Eventually, James earned his six-string back, though his back-up plan saw him through.

"What Dad didn't realize at the time," James told The Tri-City Herald, of Kennewick, Wash., "was that when he took that guitar away, I just borrowed a friend's guitar and kept right on playing. But he made his point, because I did bring my grades up, even if I was still playing a guitar."

James is certainly making the grade these days. His new album, Sunset Man, sold 57,585 copies its first week out, debuting at No. 2 on the Billboard country album chart and at No. 3 on the all-genre list, The Billboard 200. The only country act to outsell him was George Strait, whose Troubadour CD sold approximately 59,000 units, leaving George — GAC's Artist of the Month for April — at No. 1 for a second week.