Rissi Palmer broke into the country-pop scene in 2007 with the bright-eyed single "Country Girl." Palmer spent much of her adolescence in St. Louis, MO, where her participation in various talent competitions (including Hal Jackson's Talented Teens) paved the way for a publishing deal with Song Planet when she was 20. A Star Search rep stumbled across Palmer during one of her performances in New York, and the 21-year-old singer went on to compete on the 2003 season of the show. Coming in third in the season finale, Palmer was taken under the wing of Star Search judge Naomi Judd, whose manager helped Palmer nab a spot on Waiting in the Wings, a CMT series about African-Americans in the country music business. She landed a record deal with 1720 Entertainment soon after. The video for Palmer's first single, "Country Girl," went into rotation on CMT and peaked in the Top Ten on MySpace in the summer of 2007. ~ Margaret Reges