Ani DiFranco is listed in the female jazz category of the database.
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Ani DiFranco is a songwriter, vocalist and guitarist
perpetually on the move. From the raw "folk punk" of
her early albums through the jazz/funk grooves she
created during her years touring with a five-piece
band to the twists and turns of her current work as a
solo artist, Ani's restless creativity continually
leads her and her listeners into ever more exciting
territory.
Born in Buffalo, New York, DiFranco was already
singing and playing guitar in public before she was
old enough to drive. As a teenager, the poems she'd
been writing in "long skinny columns" soon evolved
into lyrics, and music became a way for the teenager
to talk about the things that mattered most to her:
the power dynamics of romantic entanglements, the
fragmentation of her family, the choices she watched
her friends making, and the state of life in her
hometown and her country.
The early 1990s brought a temporary relocation to NewYork and classes in poetry and politics at the New
School, but her real education came on weekends, as
she hit the road with increasing frequency and growing confidence, developing her signature percussive fingerpicking and dynamic range in order to grab and hold the attention of noisy bar crowds. Even the need to fill time while re-tuning became an opportunity to improvise off-the-cuff stories about whatever had happened during the course of her day, which became yet another hallmark of her style. After just about every one of her funny, outspoken, intimate gigs,she'd leave behind a fresh batch of converts eager to spread the word to everyone they knew, via cassette sat first and then CDs. Rather than waiting for some A&R bigwig to sign her, Ani simply created her ownrecord label, Righteous Babe, eventually turning down legions of potential deals when she realized they had nothing to offer that she couldn't provide herself. In the process, the born performer began to learn her way around the recording studio, too, gradually developing her own innovative means to convey the spontaneity,intensity and wit of her live concerts on disc.
Nearly a decade and a half of hard work, glowing word of mouth, and relentless touring later, the
self-described "Little Folksinger" is packing joints
like Carnegie Hall and amphitheaters around the world,though she still makes each venue she plays feel as cozy as a living room and as sweaty as a neighborhood dive. That DIY label of hers, still based in Buffalo (with a European branch based in London), has nowreleased 16 of Ani's own CDs and about a dozen more byan eclectic hand-picked roster of artists whose musicis as unclassifiable and unpredictable as hers.
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But that's only part of the story. Over the years, Ani
has swapped album appearances with Prince and MaceoParker, produced recordings by Dan Bern and Janis Ian,performed orchestral versions of her compositions with the Buffalo Philharmonic, helped find wholly new fans for the songs of Woody Guthrie and the stories of Utah Phillips, had her own tunes covered by the likes of Dave Matthews, and Chuck D, recorded duets with bothJohn Gorka and Jackie Chan, and inspired countless other musicians to rewrite the rules of the recording industry by striving for self-sufficiency and refusing to allow art to be subsumed by cold commerce. Throughher Righteous Babe Foundation, she's been able to support grassroots cultural and political
organizations around the country, and she has
repeatedly lent her time and her voice to such diverse
pursuits as opposing the death penalty, upholding
women's reproductive rights, promoting queer
visibility, and preserving historic buildings back in
Buffalo (including a long-neglected church currently
being transformed into the new headquarters of
Righteous Babe).
Ani DiFranco's career has been full of surprises — for
her, and for the rest of us — and she's no stranger to
change, both sudden and slow. But some things remain
unchanged, like her commitment to speaking the truth,
as she sees it, without fear or concession. Bruce
Cockburn recently observed in Performing Songwriter
that Ani considers it part of her job description "to
try and reflect real life in [her] songs. The life of
the streets; the life of nations; the lives of people
coping with power or its absence, looking for joy
through the loneliness and pain and the complexities
of relationship; the life of the spirit. All these are
the stuff of human experience, and human experience is
what we all share."
She does so with two basic instruments, both of which
are also constants in her ever-evolving world: her
trusty guitar and her unforgettable voice. Vanity Fair
describes the latter as "astonishing... coolly,
permanently urgent, tugging at the sleeve or close at
the ear, like the murmur of a lover who knows every
last secret and decides to stay."
For more info on Ani DiFranco visit:
www.righteousbabe.com |
