Rissi Palmer Embraces Growth, and Love on Soulful New EP ‘Perspectives’

Rissi Palmer is owning the many facets of her life story on her latest EP, Perspectives. “I’m very proud of this project,” she tells American Songwriter. “I think it shows a different side of me.”

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It all started with “Old Black Southern Woman,” the lead single off the February-released EP, which Palmer originally intended to feature on her upcoming album. But after deciding that the song wasn’t the right fit for that project, she had the idea to release an EP first. That’s when she called upon her longtime friend, Grammy Award-winning songwriter and producer Shannon Sanders, to produce Perspectives.

“The whole idea behind the project was I wanted to do something that these songs fit on and told a cohesive story and get back to what I’ve always wanted to do, which was to make country music,” she says. “So we did this very rootsy, soulful, honest take on all these different perspectives from which I’m viewing life now.”

The result is a four-song set that blends flavors of bluegrass and country, with Palmer exploring topics ranging from family legacy to dating in her 40s. The EP includes a cover of The SteelDrivers’ “Can You Run?” which tells the story of an enslaved person trying to escape to freedom during the Civil War. The idea of doing a cover of the track was suggested to Palmer by author and songwriter Alice Randall.

“The idea of songs and words changing meaning based on their context was really interesting to me,” Palmer says about how the song inspired the EP’s name. “The meaning of the story completely changes because of who is singing the song. This is [Chris Stapleton] stepping outside of himself and telling the story in third person, whereas when someone like me sings it, it’s coming from a person who is Black and the descendant of enslaved people, so it takes on a different meaning. There’s a lot of through lines.” 

Palmer’s voice as a songwriter shines through on “Good To Me,” which she describes as “ripped from the headlines from things that I am currently dealing with in my life.” Written by Palmer, Sanders, and Hilton Wright II, “Good To Me” is an autobiographical song about a 44-year-old woman’s perspective on dating on the other side of divorce, vowing that she doesn’t need riches or even to be under lock and key, but is simply looking for a man who will treat her with respect. “It made me confront a lot of things. It was a good exercise for me to think about, ‘What do you want? How do you feel about this?’” she says of writing the song.  

At the heart of the EP is “Old Black Southern Woman,” which initially came to Palmer in a dream. “My writing process is that I will think on something for a while and try to figure out my way around it,” she says. “Songwriting is a very cerebral process. There’s a lot of internal work that happens before it ever makes it onto a piece of paper. Palmer cites the most personal line as,I want to honor her by healing, trusting and believing / That every curse my family claimed ends with me.

“I wanted [the song] to be this universal experience,” she adds. “We talk about the downsides of growing old, but we don’t often talk about the blessing that is growing old. You get to watch yourself and the people around you mature and get wiser, and watch your children grow. You get to appreciate things.” 

The song naturally brought her mother and grandmother to the forefront of her mind, particularly when they were making the music video that features old photographs and ends with Palmer standing with her two daughters as they look at a photo of her late mother holding her as a baby. “There’s a lot of things that I wanted to change and reset for my own daughters, one of them being the fact that I’m alive and I can be involved and instrumental in their lives in ways that my mother wasn’t able to because she was sick and passed away,” she says.

“There was always a part of me that felt the empty space because my mother wasn’t able to be there. It’s always nice to think about [her], but at the same time, there’s a lot of regret and wishing that she could have seen this. That’s what the song is about: the blessing of getting older, taking care of your body, mind, and spirit. If my daughters don’t learn anything else from me, I would like for them to take that lesson.”

The EP closes with a cover of Loretta Lynn’s “Somebody Somewhere (Don’t Know What He’s Missin’ Tonight),” with one of the through lines of the EP being Palmer’s passion for country music. “This is why you started this because you love country music,” she says of her mindset with Perspectives. “It was a nice way to reach back, but also take an assessment of who I am right now and see how much I’ve grown.”

 Looking at her own journey, Palmer admits she never expected to have her own radio show or for advocacy to become such an integral part of her career. As she walks openly toward the future, she’s letting her intuition guide the way while remaining open to her perspectives evolving as she does. “I look forward to [my perspective] changing. I hope I’ve learned something that gives me an even greater grasp on what I think and what I feel. How lucky are you that you get to have not only a first chapter, but a second chapter. That, to me, is the beauty of getting older.”