Music in Your Gardens: Rissi Palmer
We're proud to present Rissi Palmer as a part of Music in Your Gardens, a free eight-week online concert series showcasing renowned artists who call the Durham area home. The series shifts Duke Performances' longtime summer series, Music in the Gardens, normally held outdoors at Sarah P. Duke Gardens, to an online format in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On August 19 at 7 PM ET, we'll premiere a new, specially recorded performance by Rissi online, free of charge, on dukeperformances.duke.edu and on our YouTube page. The film, pre-recorded in a socially-distanced manner, will be accompanied by a live YouTube chat with Rissi, who will answer questions from viewers.
In 2007, Rissi Palmer released her debut single, "Country Girl," and became the first Black woman to chart a country song since 1987. Ever since, Palmer has woven notes of R&B, gospel, and country into a sound she calls "Southern Soul." Soulful it is: her latest album, Revival, released in 2019, revels in blackness, protest, and heritage, like a twangy Aretha Franklin. Listening to Revival is a lot like marching in a rally: sometimes you'll hear chants, a burst of choral response, and sometimes you'll slow down, sit alone in a band of sunlight. Palmer, sometimes defiant, sometimes vulnerable, moves between the political and the personal with ease. (She has, after all, played at both the White House and small stage coffeehouses.) From her home in Durham, Palmer delivers anthems for the national moment.
