Jessica Harp

• Genre: New Country

About

In 2002, when Kansas City-born Jessica Harp self-released her first album, Preface, at 20, Nashville wasn't quite ready for an under-21 female superstar. LeAnn Rimes' post-adolescent career was already on the commercial decline after she shifted her sights toward pop, and Taylor Swift was a few years away; Jessica Andrews, Alecia Elliott and Meredith Edwards weren't exactly taking the world by storm, either. So Harp didn't put out a second solo album for another seven years. But in between, she joined up with her friend, confessional teen-folk songstress Michelle Branch, and their soft-rock, strum-and-harmony duo, the Wreckers, wound up topping the country chart with "Leave the Pieces," from 2006's Stand Still, Look Pretty. The collection went gold and coughed up another Top 10 country hit, and the Wreckers followed it with a live album in 2007. But while the duo hasn't been written off, both singers seem to see their solo careers as first priority. Harp's lusty single "Boy Like Me" came out in early 2009 and peaked at No. 30 on the country chart. The album, A Woman Needs, was set for release several months later.