Hutchinson back on WB
Singing career comes full circle
By Kevin W. Smith
KSMITH@AZSTARNET.COM
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 08.28.2008
It hasn't been the easiest career path for Eric Hutchinson.
The soulful New York-based singer-songwriter started doing music full-time around 2002.
He eventually hit gold, or so he thought, when he was signed to Maverick Records. But Madonna's label folded just as Hutchinson was starting to record his debut in 2006. He was then "kicked to the curb" by Maverick's parent company,Warner Bros. Records.
"Everything turned out to be this weird blessing in disguise," he said from New York.
Hutchinson, 27, makes light, acoustic pop and recalls the modern white-boy soul of Jamie Lidell mixed with a little of the old-school crooners like Stevie Wonder.
He'll be performing a free show Friday as part of the UA's annual CatFest. He replaces pop star Katy Perry, who backed out a few weeks ago.
Following the label drama, Hutchinson returned home to his native Maryland and lived with his parents for a while.
He spent about six months reconnecting with his music, getting support from fan e-mails and refusing to give up on his vision.
"I'd have friends that had day jobs, and you get stuck in that stuff," he said. "Suddenly you're the manager of the restaurant and you don't have enough time to sit around and work on what now is a hobby."
Hutchinson said he got through tough times by making money playing shows. He decided to self-release an album with the material he already had, plus the songs he had written since getting dropped from Maverick, like "Oh!" and "Back to Where I Was."
Hutchinson released "Sounds Like This" in August 2007, prompting a high-school friend of his to alert an unlikely source for a review.
In September of 2007, celebrity gossip blogger Perez Hilton began championing Hutchinson as the "next big thing."
"If you take the best bits of John Mayer, Jason Mraz and Jack Johnson, you'd have Eric Hutchinson," he gushed.
The online hype prompted Hutchinson's album to start burning up the iTunes sales chart. It hit No. 5 and remains the highest-charting iTunes album by an unsigned act.
Soon labels came calling, including Warner Bros.
"I thought it was a terrible idea and I was really kind of holding a grudge," he said. "But they really seemed to get it and were into the album."
In May, Hutchinson's "Sounds Like This" was re-released on Warner Bros., and he had come full circle.
Now he's collecting fans affectionately known as "Hutchheads" and looking forward to releasing more material.
"It takes a long time to write good songs," he said. "But I've been writing a lot of bad ones in the meantime."
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