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You may be great in your 50s, but no one really cares,' she points out. 'The music business is a young person's game. Her touring gigs stalled she wasn't sure whether or not they'd ever return. Her decision to audition for the show also came at a crossroads that was foisted on her - and the rest of the world - when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. 'Had I not done that Vince Gill project and felt like an artist again, I don't think I would've had what it takes to be a competitor in front of billions of people,' she admits. She also credits I've Got You Covered with giving her the gumption to try out for The Voice a couple of years later. 'After doing this record, I felt like an artist again.'

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'I was ready to be a solo artist again and I didn't know how to get back there,' she relates. But for her, one of the most important things about the project was that it offered her a window into a new career chapter as a mainstage act. Moten is quick to specify that she's not a country artist, per se - 'I sing psalms to traditional country to Elvis and Paul Simon,' she rattles off - and many of the artists whose songs she recorded for I've Got You Covered are just as chameleonic and genre-omnivorous as she is.

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The result was I've Got You Covered, a 2020 album full of the singer's take on classics by artists like Linda Ronstadt, Bobbie Gentry and Dolly Parton. I want you to use your own interpretation.' I thought that was really great,' she remembers. 'And he was like, 'I'm not gonna tell you how to sing anything. He was enthusiastic about the idea, so much so that he signed on to produce it for her. Moten prepped for the Country Music Hall of Famer's tour by studying the women of country from from the late '60s and early '70s and, at the suggestion of touring pedal steel guitarist Paul Franklin, floated the idea of an album full of traditional country covers to Gill. When she began working with Gill, she did just that. So it just lets me know that even on the highest of levels, if you have done the work and are qualified, go after that.' 'I wanted to know, 'What are they doing differently that I'm not doing?'' Moten remembers. Moten had never lost sight of her original goal: Every time she stood on stage, the proverbial 15 feet away from stardom, she carefully studied Iglesias, McGraw, Hill and the rest of her celebrity bosses. In 2016, she signed on as a backing singer for Gill, a gig that would turn out to be fateful for her work as an artist, too. She toured with Martina McBride for a couple of years, too, and sang backing vocals in studio sessions for artists like Bonnie Tyler. Tim McGraw and Faith Hill hired her for their Soul2Soul Tour in 2006 that engagement would wind up lasting well over a decade. Her association with Iglesias' tour quickly began to up her profile as a backing singer worth booking. I felt like I was getting paid to learn to be a better singer and better communicator through song, because he's one of those living legends - and he was teaching me.' 'I only speak English,' she clarifies, 'But we had to sing in four languages, and that changed my life. She accepted a job as a touring musician with Julio Iglesias, a gig that lasted 15 years and required her to sing in four different languages. Her career path has been long and winding. 'I was a recording artist in the '90s, and that ended, and I became a background singer to the stars,' Moten tells Taste of Country. Cotten recently left Church's touring band to return to a solo musical career that she first pursued in the mid-2000s, and Moten's roots as a multi-genre solo artist stretch back even further: In the early '90s, she inked a deal with EMI and released a solo album, whose biggest hit - 'Come in Out of the Rain' - reached the No. In terms of her growing role in Gill's show, Moten's career path has some common DNA with Joanna Cotten, backing singer and close collaborator to Eric Church, whose raw talent and stage presence earned her a grassroots fan base among concertgoers at his shows.

Wendy moten time for change