I had the honor of telling the story of when the LEGENDARY Terry Lewis and Jimmy Jam offered me my first record deal… and the decision I ultimately made for The Moth Story Hour and you can hear it all this week on your local NPR station (go to this link to find it locally: themoth.org/radio-hour#listenOnAir) or on The Moth podcast, the 4/21 episode entitled “The Soundtrack of your life”.
Thank you to Cillea Houghton and American Songwriter Magazine for the feature on my new ep, Perspectives. You can read all about it HERE.
The Academy of Country Music has announced that GRAMMY-nominated singer-songwriter, radio host, and advocate, Rissi Palmer, will be among the Special Awards Honorees at the 18th Annual Academy of Country Music Honors, taking place Wednesday, August 20, 2025, at The Pinnacle, Nashville Yards’ premier new performance venue.
Palmer will receive the ACM Lift Every Voice Award, presented in recognition of her influential work championing underrepresented voices in Country Music. This honor is awarded to individuals who have demonstrated outstanding advocacy in advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion across the genre. She joins a distinguished group of 2025 Special Awards recipients. ACM Industry and Studio Recording Awards will also be presented during the evening.
Tickets for ACM Honors™ go on sale Friday, July 11, via AXS. Performers and presenters will be announced in the coming weeks.
"I am honored and humbled to have been able to do the work that I do and have never expected anything like this in return," says Palmer. "I am frankly, blown away about receiving this special award.”
Since her 2007 breakthrough single “Country Girl” made her the first Black woman in 19 years to chart a song on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart, Palmer has been a barrier-breaking force in Country Music. As the creator and host of Color Me Country Radio with Rissi Palmer on Apple Music, she has provided a powerful platform to highlight artists of color whose contributions have often gone unrecognized. Through the Color Me Country Foundation, Palmer created the Color Me Country Artist Grant Fund, which has awarded over $200,000 to emerging artists of color, supporting their creative and professional growth.
Rissi discusses her upcoming new album, Survivor's Joy, as well as Color Me Country Radio and more with Midtown Magazine. Link to the article HERE.
Today, the Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum in collaboration with Warner Music Nashville released an expanded version of the box set From Where I Stand: The Black Experience in Country Music.Originally released in 1998 by the museum and Warner, the collection returns as a multifaceted, educational initiative, including an expanded CD box set, free online experience and concert celebration.
From Where I Stand spans a century of music and traces the many ways Black Americans have created, contributed to, and been influenced by country music. The collection now includes a fourth disc titled “Reclaiming the Heritage” that presents a fresh wave of Black artists in country and Americana who emerged through 2020. New essays by recording artists Rhiannon Giddens and Rissi Palmer join the original essays by distinguished music scholars and journalists.
Beginning today, all the music in the box set can be heard on the museum’s website via From Where I Stand: The Online Experience. The online experience is free to access and includes all the incisive essays, archival photographs and video, and historical track notes for each selection, as well as resources from the museum’s archive and resources for educators.
Additionally, free tickets to From Where I Stand: The Concert Celebration, Presented by Amazon and Riverview Foundation in the museum’s CMA Theater on Tuesday, June 18, are now available to reserve on the museum’s website, based on availability. Coinciding with Black Music Month, the concert will feature a variety of artists represented in the project. Co-producers Rissi Palmer and Shannon Sanders will lead the concert. Artists performing include Blanco Brown, Cowboy Troy, Tony Jackson, Hubby Jenkins, Miko Marks, Wendy Moten, Rissi Palmer, Darius Rucker, The War And Treaty and Barrence Whitfield. The concert will be filmed and released on the museum’s website on Thursday, Sept 12.
The From Where I Stand box set and online experience are illustrated with traditional quilt designs created years ago by the women of the Gee’s Bend community of Alabama, with type treatments by visual artist and designer David Jon Walker. Each era of music is represented with a quilt from roughly the same time period as the music. The CD box set is now available to purchase through the museum’s website or in the museum’s retail store. Proceeds from the sale of the box set will benefit the nonprofit museum’s educational programs.
(Click the pic above to hear the podcast)
Click the pic to hear the interview…