Singing life into a genre of her own and laying waste to conventional expectations in country music, Rissi Palmer is set to perform at Chautauqua for the first time at 8:15 p.m. tonight in the Amphitheater.
Raised in a musical family who loved both country and R&B, Palmer described her self-titled debut as country, but said that now her music embodies what she calls “Southern soul.”
“If you’re looking for a traditional approach, this might not be your cup of tea,” she said. “If you’re someone who is open to all the parameters of Southern soul and Southern music then yeah, I think you’ll enjoy it.”
Palmer is a frequent collaborator with Miko Marks, who visited Chautauqua last year for a phenomenal show, said Vice President for Performing and Visual Arts Laura Savia. Discovering the artist through her connection with Marks, Savia fell in love with Palmer’s music.
“Her voice is incredible; it’s this gorgeous, powerful voice that’s also full of subtlety, and she tends to work with musicians of the highest caliber,” Savia said. “As I got to know Rissi Palmer, it became a no-brainer that I wanted to bring her here.”
Palmer — accompanied by Charles Newkirk on guitar, Branden Williams on keys, Darion Alexander on bass, and Michael Johnson on drums — will be bringing a mixture of songs from her existing discography, along with a few pieces from her newest album currently in the works.
In addition to her debut Rissi Palmer, she’s recorded a children’s EP titled Best Day Ever, an EP titled The Back Porch Sessions, and a full-length album, Revival — critically hailed as her most personal and uplifting work thus far.
Inspiration for her music stems from her own experiences. Palmer’s creations are rooted in a love for the craft and the “belief that if this is what you want to do, this is what you love, this is what you are taking the time to pursue and perfect — then you absolutely deserve an opportunity to be heard like that. I don’t think anyone wants to be given anything without proving themselves; people want the opportunity to prove themselves.”
When Palmer topped the country charts in 2007 with “Country Girl,” she was the first Black woman in 20 years to chart a country song. Through “Color Me Country Radio with Rissi Palmer,” she highlights the histories of Black, Indigenous, and Latinx people in country music; through that work, she also started the Color Me Country Artist Grant Fund, in partnership with the Rainey Day Artist Fund, that has raised over $150,000 and given over 80 grants to artists of color. Through “Color Me Country,” every year she takes four or five artists of color to Leicestershire, England, to perform at The Long Road Festival, cultivating diversity in as many aspects of her industry as she can.
“Country music is one of the truly American art forms,” she said. “What I mean by that is that everyone that has touched this soil has in some way, shape, form or fashion, contributed to what we now know as country music; from European Americans to the enslaved people from Africa and Latinx people, Indigenous people. Everybody, in some way, has contributed something.”
As an artist who makes country music, Palmer considers her performances at Nashville’s storied Grand Ole Opry as a “Mama, I made it” moment. Other career highlights include an invitation from the White House — “because when the White House Calls, you answer” — and New York’s Lincoln Center. Performing there, she said, “as an independent artist, was pretty amazing.”
“I believe everybody has a purpose, and some people find theirs easier than others, but I truly do believe that this is my purpose; I’ve been doing this for as long as I can remember,” Palmer said. “I can remember being a little kid recording song ideas on my little Fisher Price tape recorder. This is something that I’ve just literally always loved, and this is the way that I voice my frustrations. This is the way that I voice joy. This is me, emoting. It’s as natural to me as breathing.”
Savia is expecting Chautauquans to come away “really smitten with Palmer — and perhaps even a little bit smitten with country music, if they weren’t already.” Having performed with artists like Taylor Swift and the Eagles, Palmer is a “musician’s musician,” Savia said. “She knows how to connect with an audience, and I fully expect that to happen” tonight in the Amp.
Her earlier musical expressions, Palmer said, fit more squarely into the box of country. As she explores different sounds, Palmer notices — and admonishes — the disparity between the spaces she’s afforded as a Black artist and those afforded to white artists.
“We’re not always afforded that same evolution or the same space to create,” she said, “because it’s like, ‘Oh, well, if you don’t sound like this, then it’s not country.’ I think that you’re asked to choose, more often than not.”
Leaving her record label and creating her own gave her genuine space to create, she said, in a way that couldn’t have happened otherwise.
“I really feel like it gave me wings; I was afforded freedom to kind of express myself the way that I wanted to, without anyone telling me that I was wrong, or any of that,” Palmer said. “I’m really grateful for that.”
Staff writer Julia Weber contributed to this report.
