James Otto Turns Trash Into Treasure

James Otto's very first guitar came from an unlikely place -- a trash can! Otto was around 7 years old when he stumbled upon an old guitar that someone had discarded in an alley. He brought it home, but his mother made him go back to find the person who put it in the trash, to make sure the instrument was truly up for grabs. Otto says the man explained that the guitar was his son's, but that it drove him crazy, so he threw it away.

"That was my first experience with a guitar, and I don't think it lasted very long," Otto tells Country Weekly. "I believe I broke it over a bed post a couple months later 'cause I couldn't figure out how to play it. I was just too young. But it was the one and only guitar I've ever broken, I promise you that."