When singer-songwriter Grace Palmer released her debut record, I’ll Be Somebody, in 2021, she had only recently moved to Vermont after a short stint in Nashville. Nineteen at the time, the Connecticut native had wanted to soak up Music City lessons like a sponge, but not all the advice she got was good.
“One of the first things another musician down there said to me was: ‘Don’t talk about politics,’” Palmer recalled.
Palmer is now 25 and living in Burlington, where she is a rising name in the local music scene. It’s taken her a while to disregard the well-intentioned tip. “As a songwriter, it just feels so inauthentic to beat around the bush if I’m saying things like, ‘Hey, we shouldn’t be stealing people from their homes in the dead of night,’” she said. “Maybe the way to get people to care about me and what I’m singing about is to actually say what I’m thinking.”
Maybe the way to get people to care about me and what I’m singing aboutis to actually say what I’m thinking.
Grace Palmer
Palmer is putting that thesis to the test as she readies a slew of new singles ahead of a full-length LP expected to drop this spring, tentatively titled Everybody Is Somebody. The new tunes are rooted in subjects near and dear to her heart: social justice and climate change. “How Many People Equal a Person” comes out this Friday, January 30, an opening salvo from an artist looking to establish a clear identity after some years of growth.
Raised in Ellington, Conn., Palmer cut her teeth playing Christian rock with her family before graduating high school in 2019. Though she was accepted at Saint Michael’s College in Colchester, she decided to go all in on music and move to Nashville instead. It turned out to be just a six-month sojourn: COVID-19 hit, and she lost her job and apartment. Palmer was left to choose between returning to Connecticut or giving Vermont a try.
“It was initially my plan B to go to college, but I’m so glad it worked out the way it did,” Palmer said of enrolling at St. Mike’s. “Vermont has become my home, and I can’t see myself leaving.”
A big reason the Green Mountains feel so good to Palmer has been her acceptance into the local music scene. While studying political science and philosophy, Palmer started singing with several jam and funk outfits, including Lazy Bird and Small Talk, that took quick notice of her powerful, soulful voice.
“I learned a lot playing with those guys,” Palmer said. “They taught me about music theory, and they were connected to other college musicians and the Burlington scene. It was super formative for me.”
Palmer soon outgrew the confines of those bands, however, in which she was largely expected to, as she said, “be a girl in a sparkly outfit who hits a big note and then dances around to hype them while they play their solos.” Any time she expressed a desire to do something more, she said, she was met with resistance. And her bandmates weren’t comfortable with her sharing her political views from the stage.
“All respect to them, but I realized that my role would never evolve, and I wanted to be writing and singing my own songs,” Palmer said.
As she was winding down her time in those bands, Palmer met guitarist and producer George Walker Petit, who noticed her playing at Red Square in Burlington. Petit, who has produced or engineered for the likes of Boz Scaggs and Will Lee, tapped Palmer to sing for his funk tribute project, Power of Tower. He also took on producer duties for her forthcoming record as Palmer began another phase of her sprawling music education.
“Moving over to playing with George and the band was a big step up for me,” she said. “The rehearsals were like nothing I’d ever experienced before! It’s the difference between being around people making a living off of their music and treating it professionally versus someone who maybe is more inspired by the party aspect of it all.” She realized she needed to “recalibrate” with a more professional approach.
Part of that process involved clearly defining her sound. Though she sings rock, funk and jam music with other bands, her own style hews much closer to Americana. Credit Petit for advising her to focus on voice and guitar to establish a sonic identity.
“It’s a genre that feels freeing and expansive to me,” Palmer said. “I always say: If you like Jim Croce and Miley Cyrus, with Fleetwood Mac as a babysitter, that’s where I’m at.”
Palmer feels the new record serves as a personal statement, and she performs its songs with that theme in mind. “The first few songs are all about how I came to have the beliefs I hold — how I came to care about social justice,” she explained. “The main meat of the record is about those beliefs themselves, and then I end it with a few fun party dance songs because life can’t just be doom and gloom.”
The year started with a slate of local gigs and the launch of a crowdfunding campaign to help finance the record’s eventual release, hopefully in late May. After dropping “How Many People Equal a Person,” Palmer will tour solo throughout Massachusetts and Connecticut in February before returning to Burlington in March to debut her new backing band.
“It feels like I’m coming into a really authentic moment with what I’m doing and the songs I’m writing,” she said. “As a songwriter, responding to the world is sort of a responsibility, as far as I see it. We don’t live in a rainbow sunshine circus, and not turning away from that fact means everything to me.”
The original print version of this article was headlined “Saving Grace | Burlington singer-songwriter Grace Palmer embraces authenticity in her music as she gets ready to drop a new record”
This article appears in January 28 • 2026.
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