Laci Kaye Booth clearly recalls the career path she’d envisioned in her head. After finishing in fourth place on “American Idol” in 2019, the smoky-voiced country singer from small-town Texas promptly moved to Nashville to pursue a record deal — then landed one just months later when she signed with Big Machine, the label known for having introduced music’s biggest star to the world.
“I was just a nervous girl with a really bad spray tan.” Nevertheless, Booth made it through week after week on the singing show until she was eliminated five years ago this month; by the end of 2019, she was sitting with executives from Big Machine, which she says was the first label she met with in Nashville. “I was so green, but I was so excited that I was in front of these people who’d signed Taylor Swift and made her — well, she made herself a huge star,” Booth says.