WENDY MOTEN
MAY, 13th 2023
General Admission - $35
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SHELL YEAH! IS A FUNDRAISING EVENT BENEFITING THE OVERTON PARK SHELL
The Overton Park Shell is a non-profit organization presenting concerts free for all each year! Our mission is building a stronger Memphis community through music, finding common ground in a diverse audience. All proceeds from Shell Yeah! Benefit Concerts directly support and power our Free Concert Series while keeping the mission of the Overton Park Shell accessible for all. General Admission tickets are $35.
Click here to learn more about our visitor experience.
Tickets to the Shell Yeah! Benefit Concert Series make great gifts to clients, employees, and everyone else! We have different ways for your company or organization to get involved no matter what scale works best for you. To learn more about our custom group ticket packages and Hilltop Hospitality deck party packages, email natalieb@overtonparkshell.org today.
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When Wendy Moten completed her triumphant blind audition for The Voice in 2021 (and all four judges had turned their chairs around and started begging the singer to join their team), Ariana Grande said the most important thing said that day. “You are spectacular, and I need you to be in the foreground. It’s time.”
You see, Wendy Moten has spent most of her decades in music in roles the industry calls “background vocals,” but that will be deceptive to those who don’t know how demanding, exposed and vital the BGV role can be. She’s sung intimate duets before thousands with superstars Vince Gill and Julio Iglesias. She has mastered the Nashville studio system, where singers are expected to match the feel and tone of songs they’ve just heard for the first time. And she’s been tapped as a lead vocalist for the Time Jumpers, the most exclusive live country music residency in Nashville. But that just scratches the surface of Wendy’s experience.
She’ll tell you that her career has been “unconventional,” but from a distance, Moten’s life in music feels not only logical, but like an Americana parable. Raised in Memphis on church music, country, soul and pop, Moten sang professionally in a range of roles from her teenage years. She planned to go into business and law, but a talent scout overheard her cutting a jingle in a recording studio and ushered her into an R&B deal with EMI in the 1990s. That led to top ten singles in the US and UK and headlining dates around the world. But Wendy found a rewarding path singing harmony. Besides Iglesias and Gill, she’s toured with Tim McGraw, Faith Hill and Martina McBride. And she’s recorded duets with Michael McDonald, Kirk Whalum, Peabo Bryson and Larry Carlton.
She could have cruised for the rest of her working life, but it speaks to her character that Moten, a lifelong learner and searcher, would achieve her greatest career landmarks in her 50s. She was invited to be a full-time member of The Time Jumpers, an elite crew of Nashville musicians that’s won Grammy awards and national press while playing the same venue week after sold-out week for 20 years. She started a fruitful relationship with the Grand Ole Opry in 2019, and she was a featured artist in the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s Musician Spotlight series.
Then during the pandemic stasis of 2020, she reached out of her comfort zone and auditioned for The Voice. On that most successful of all the latter-day TV talent showcases, even after a scary fall on set that led to a broken elbow, she carried on and came within a few votes of winning the entire season. Blake Shelton, her show coach, said at the close of the finale, “This is Wendy’s moment. She’s one of the greatest vocalists on ‘The Voice,’ ever.”
Wendy now lives her dream, singing diverse American songs that have meant the most to her over the years - classics from the pop standards songbook, from R&B, from soul and from country music, a genre she fell for as a girl growing up near the Mississippi River. “I consider myself a bridge from Memphis to Nashville to the rest of the world,” she says. And now America has witnessed that when she is the one in the spotlight, she’s got the voice to deliver on that lofty hope.
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Gates open at 6:00pm. Show at 7:30PM.
Tickets to this event are sold on Ticketmaster - $35 GA. Food trucks will be on site and bars will be available for alcoholic and non-alcoholic purchases as well.
No outside food, drinks, coolers or pets are allowed at this event. Empty reusable water bottles may be brought in to fill up at our water fountains.
Overton Park Shell is an outdoor amphitheater with lawn seating. Please bring your own lawn chairs or blankets.
We ask that you pull up your Ticketmaster e-ticket on your phone before coming to the Overton Park Shell (or take a screenshot) as you are entering our 2 box offices.
Because this is a fundraiser, no refunds are available. Thank you for helping to power our FREE concert series!
Children 5 and under do not require a ticket.
Pets are not allowed at Shell Yeah! Benefit Concerts.
The Overton Park Shell is wheelchair accessible.
All entrants must have a ticket.
No professional photography, video, or audio recording equipment.
The Overton Park Shell will be 'passing the bucket' at the event if you are feeling generous!
Dance floor will be OPEN for the show.
More Shell Yeah! dates coming soon!
Food Trucks:
Moss Be Smoke | Dynamic Duo | The Green Beetle | Sips and Sammies