Kim Hill Opens Up About Love, Changing Faith and Starting Over With Paulette Wooten in Candid New Podcast

Kim Hill is speaking openly about the personal and musical journey that brought her to Wooten Hill, the duo she shares with partner Paulette Wooten-and why she once doubted there would be room for their voices together.

In "What If Your Second Act Is the Truest One," the October 30 episode of The Road to Wooten Hill, the pair discuss their relationship, their changing beliefs and the fears that delayed their return to public musical life. The conversation accompanies How Did We Get Here, their debut full-length album, released October 23. The 12-track project was co-produced by Charles Yingling and Wooten Hill.

For Hill, whose earlier career established her as a Grammy-nominated, Dove Award-winning Christian artist, singing again required confronting doubts about age, belonging and whether she had anything left to offer.

"I was really kind of tired of my own voice," Hill admits in the podcast. "I didn't think the world needed another Kim Hill record."

Singing with Wooten changed that feeling. Hill describes the contrast between their voices as opening new musical possibilities, allowing her to hear her own singing differently.

"When I sang with Pette, it felt like it opened up the world to me in a new way," she says.

The musical partnership took shape after producer Brent Maher encouraged them to sing together from the beginning of a song, rather than approach the performance as two separate soloists. His suggestion helped establish the vocal interplay that would become central to Wooten Hill.

Their return to Nashville's Blueroom Studios for the podcast brought that history into focus. The pair recall recording early material there around 2015, then watching other demands interrupt their plans. A promising initial performance in 2020 was followed almost immediately by the pandemic shutdown.

Behind those professional setbacks lay a longer and more complicated personal transition. Hill and Wooten describe a 16-year journey together, including the difficulty of becoming more public about their relationship after building careers within Christian music.

Hill says she struggled with the shift from feeling accepted within a familiar community to seeing herself as an outsider.

"I used to be in the club," she reflects. "And now I'm the other."

The conversation also addresses why they moved slowly. Hill recalls that her sons were teenagers when she and Wooten began their relationship. Rather than make an immediate public announcement, she sought advice and prioritised their needs as the family adjusted.

Wooten says she understood those responsibilities and supported the decision to take their time. Both emphasise that their choices reflected their particular circumstances, rather than a prescribed path for others.

Their discussion of faith is similarly personal. They describe re-examining beliefs they grew up with while retaining a spiritual foundation. Hill also speaks appreciatively of a church community that has welcomed them.

"We have way less beliefs now, but we have more faith," they explain during the conversation.

That distinction gives the podcast a broader focus than an account of leaving a music genre. The pair discuss what they have retained, what they have reconsidered and how those changes inform the songs they now write and perform.

Small house concerts helped convince them that an audience existed for this chapter. Sharing their experiences prompted listeners to talk about their own losses, health struggles, family changes and uncertain futures. Those exchanges helped Hill and Wooten see their music as a way to begin conversations.

The album's title, How Did We Get Here, captures their amazement at reaching this point. Hill describes making the record with a renewed sense of enjoyment and a greater ability to be present with others.

For Wooten Hill, success now includes listeners recognising something of their own lives in the songs-and finding comfort there.

"When people hear their story in your story," Hill says, "that to me is just like the ultimate thing."

Find the album and podcast at Wooten Hill's official website.