To get anywhere in life you have to be willing to take risks while also having people who believe in you maybe even more than you believe in yourself. Jimmy Wayne has become successful because of both of those things. First, when he seemingly had nobody, he had foster parents who took him in and nurtured his dreams. Later, Jimmy met and found a champion in Scott Borchetta. “You know,” says Jimmy, “Scott Borchetta changed my life. He didn’t make a dent; he created a canyon. He has changed my life so much.”
That belief helped give Jimmy the confidence to go out and find songs that suited him and his personal style. What he found was the song “Do You Believe Me Now.” Drawn in by the freshness of the production, Wayne admits that the non-traditional production could’ve been a problem.
“It was risky,” he says, “but in this business you’re either a leader or a follower and I’d rather be a leader.”
The reward for taking that risk was seeing his song top the country charts. “That’s a day I’ll never forget," he said.
This isn’t the first time Jimmy Wayne found success on the country music charts but in an industry where being gone from the charts for three or four months can mean the end of a career, Wayne was off of them for a remarkable three and a half years. It was partially with this absence in mind that Jimmy knew that he had to come out with something that would get attention. It’s what lead him to his album’s production team of Dave Pahanish and Joe West (Mark Bright produced 3 of the 12 track on the record as well).
The production was “something fresh, It was something I’ve never heard.” Jimmy continues, “That’s what you need. In this competitive
market you have to bring something to the table that’s gonna knock (people) out, especially being gone as long as I was. You have to come back stronger than ever.
Like many songwriters, Jimmy writes about what he’s lived and what he knows. It is that honesty about his past that influenced songs like “Paper Angels” from his first album and the true-to-life stories “Kerosene Kid” and “Where You’re Goin’” on his new release, “Do You Believe Me Now.” Jimmy says that he “wrote them for people to be able to have something to heal from, so it’s great to know that I’m doing my job.”
Jimmy also feels particularly fond of “Where You’re Going” going as far to say “if I have a song that is a signature song it’d be that one.” It’s a song that he feels passionately about. It’s his motto. To live life going forward and to give people the chance to prove themselves, because after all “It’s not where you’ve been, it’s where you’re going.”
If there is any one person in the public eye has ‘brought themselves up by the bootstraps’ it’s Jimmy Wayne. He has proven that it takes a team to lead a person to a successful life and that we should all help those less fortunate than us, “It’s what were supposed to do; help the orphans.”
It is that belief that his foster parents had in him. They gave a helpless boy hope and the security to not only dream but to take the risks to follow that dream, “If it wasn’t for them I wouldn’t be here. There’s no doubt about it. It wouldn’t have happened.”
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