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Ani DiFranco

 
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Ani DiFranco

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"I'd rather be able to face myself in the bathroom mirror than be rich and famous."

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Ani DiFranco

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Singer, songwriter, guitarist

Punk/folk singer-songwriter Ani DiFranco attained musical heroine status at the age of 25 among both fans and critics with her seventh release, Not A Pretty Girl, in 1995, and even greater popular success with Dilate, in 1996. She told Spin’s James Patrick Herman, "People expect my kind of in-your-face approach from a punk, not some chick with an acoustic guitar. I prefer the power that comes with walking on stage with a little piece of wood… that’s more punk rock than making a lot of noise."

Her acoustic performances are part mosh-pit party, part hoedown, and part folk-hootenanny, punctuated with stage dives, broken guitar strings, and lyrics that cover issues like abortion, body image baggage, bi-sexuality, death, and fidelity. DiFranco alternates between a smoldering warmth and an angry explosion of sound, and defies categorization by blending the forth-rightness and anger of punk rock with the simplicity, beauty, and poetry of folk music. She uses press-on nails reinforced with electrical tape when performing to bang-strum on her acoustic guitar, and performs both as a solo artist and with a backing band (though the band often consists of only drummer Andy Stochansky as musical back-up).

Wide Range of Styles and Fans
DiFranco’s fans reveal her widespread appeal as they are as diverse and hard to peg as her style, ranging in age from teenaged girls to the middle-aged, and from alternative rock fans, to folk music and hardcore punk rock enthusiasts.

With a broad emotional palette at her disposal, DiFranco’s vocal range fluctuates between gritty and airy. Rolling Stone’s Fred Goodman described her as "A wonder to behold: a spiky-haired volcano … (whose) songs, though mostly about independence and romance … often take unexpected, jarring turns—such as when she recites a poem about an abortion or sings about being felt up in the subway." She told Out magazine’s Ray Rogers, "I just sing my goofy songs about my goofy little life", underscoring the fact that she’s her own person and without regard for those who might take offense at her uncensored output.

DiFranco was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1970, and began playing music at age nine when her parents bought her a Beatles songbook and an acoustic guitar. Within a few years, she was singing "Yesterday" at local coffeehouses with the guidance of a local folk singer. As Rolling Stone’s Evelyn McDonnell put it, "She met a man named Mike, a 30-year-old ’degenerate folk-singer barfly’ at a guitar store in Buffalo, NY. They began playing together and hanging out with other singer/songwriters, who would come up from New York to play." DiFranco’s parents were absorbed in their own problems at the time, and DiFranco told McDonnell, "(They) were just happy from the beginning

that I was self-sufficient. For me, it was the ideal childhood: complete emancipation."

In high school, at the age of 15, the independent and spirited DiFranco found an apartment of her own in Buffalo and started writing her own songs in order to pursue her already mushrooming career. At the age of eighteen, she moved to New York City and began touring the country in a Volkswagen Bug, performing at college campuses, coffeehouses, bars, and music festivals. She explained to Guitar Player’s James Rotondi, "(My percussive acoustic technique) evolved out of twelve years of playing in bars, where people are there to pick up somebody and drink themselves into a stupor, not to listen to the chick in the corner with the acoustic."

Started Her Own Label
When DiFranco reached the point where she wanted to make an album in the late 1980s, the unresponsive-ness of music industry executives prompted her to start her own label, Righteous Babe, in 1990. Dedicated to remaining independent, she told Rotondi, "If you want to challenge the system, you don’t go to bed with it." DiFranco created her audience through a slow build-up of fans over the years and her ascent to fame was slow as she told Billboard’s Roger Deitz, "Righteous Babe Records doesn’t have a big publicity and marketing budget. My marketing and publicity, and the whole reason I have this big audience base, is because of years of playing." By 1996, she had sold over 200,000 copies of her albums.

Although DiFranco started her own label to retain complete control of her work, she also enjoys the notion that she negotiates how to reach her audience and how to juggle finances. She began by selling tapes as she toured across the country, and although Righteous Babe Records sold over 200,000 records by 1996, DiFranco still devoted three weeks out of every month touring, splitting her week off between Buffalo, New York, where the label is based, and New York City, where she lives. She told McDonnell, "that’s the nature of a career that’s built on toting your butt around the country and playing music for people as opposed to commercial airplay or national TV exposure."

Inherently Political
Political and moral themes, often of a personal nature, dominate DiFranco’s albums; an example is "The Million You Never Made" on Not A Pretty Girl, which offers the verse, "If you don’t live what you sing about, your mirror is going to find out." On the same album, DiFranco sings about bisexuality, and the death penalty from the perspective of the condemned. By embracing the most controversial issues of our time, DiFranco hopes to diffuse them, discuss them, and deepen understanding of each topic’s nuances.

DiFranco’s most ardent fans are a possessive group. While performing at a concert in New York City in 1996, MTV News cameras filmed the show while DiFranco’s fans shouted, "MTV sucks!" at the camerapeople. DiFranco toned down the angry outbursts with humor, telling the audience that the camerapeople were from Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom, there to capture her in her natural environment, and that she would soon be mating with her drummer.

Difranco released Dilate in 1996, the majority of which covered the subject of her newly-blossoming relationship with her sound man, Andrew Gilchrist (affectionately called "Goat Boy" by DiFranco because of his long goatee). The couple married in 1998. This relationship made some of her lesbian fans upset, but it wasn’t the first time DiFranco had raised their ire. "I remember the first time that I started walking out on stage in a dress and hearing young women screaming ’Sellout!,’" she told The Progressive. "They were just coming to know their own anger, and it hadn’t deepened with an awareness that feminism is truly about women becoming themselves, and having choices, and I remember those angry, angry responses…." Dilate debuted in the top 100 of the Billboard charts, a first for DiFranco, and brought her wider mainstream attention.

A long-awaited live album was released in 1997. Living in Clip featured 31 songs performed in various cities across the United States, as well as snippets of DiFranco’s between-song banter that she has become known for. The album was widely praised. She also placed songs in six movies that year, including the title song to the Julia Roberts vehicle My Best Friend’s Wedding, and her tour that year was confirmed as one of the top-grossing tours of the year.

Collaborative Spirit
DiFranco embarked on several collaborations with her personal idols in 1999. The first, a CD made with Utah Phillips, contained both Phillips’s stories and DiFranco’s vocals and music. She told The Progressive that a collaboration between her and the storyteller was a logical choice: "Our uniforms look very different, and our ages and our audiences, and yet we’re telling a lot of the same stories in our own ways." She also toured with Maceo Parker later in the year, an inspiration for her own performances. "You just give it all up, what ’it’ is. That instinct is maybe more important than what ’it’ is on any given night. That’s your mission. That’s what originally drew me to Maceo as a performer, just going to a show and realizing this guy holds nothing back. He just plays until the last bead of sweat drips off and falls over. To me, that’s what performing is all about."

She continued her prolific output into the new mille-nium, releasing at least one new studio album every year as well as another double-CD live album, So Much Shouting, So Much Laughter, in 2002. Her music took a jazz-influenced turn on the albums Up Up Up Up Up Up and To the Teeth, but her wide range of influences best manifested themselves on 2001’s Revelling: Reckoning, an album Time called "her most ambitious, accomplished work yet, melding folk, jazz, funk, and rock into music that’s as elemental and unpredictable as the weather."

DiFranco went through some changes in both her career and personal life in 2003. A split with her husband, a return to playing solo after years of playing with a band, and a move down to New Orleans promised to influence the music DiFranco composes and the direction in which her career moves.

As DiFranco’s popularity grows, she’s faced with difficult decisions and growing pains; she’s caught between fans who want her to remain accessible, and her untapped fans, reached only through more exposure. She has managed to balance her increasing mainstream recognition with her staunch political beliefs, refusing to compromise her values and beliefs for money. She has kept Righteous Babe in Buffalo for over a decade, helping to grow the economy there. "[I] didn’t think that New York needed another little business, but Buffalo did," she told Curve. "Now people move to Buffalo to work at Righteous Babe Records. There were probably only 6 people who moved to Buffalo in the last 30 years!" She has famously maintained her distance from major labels, so much so that she is rarely even approached about signing now. DiFranco told McDonnell, "I believe in… not just making revolutionary music but making it in a way that challenges the system… The possibility of emancipation and control and independence is so much greater now."

Selected discography
Ani DiFranco, Righteous Babe, 1990.
Not So Soft, Righteous Babe, 1991.
Imperfectly, Righteous Babe, 1992.
Puddle Dive, Righteous Babe, 1993.
Like I Said: Songs 1990-1991, Righteous Babe, 1993.
Out of Range, Righteous Babe, 1994.
Not a Pretty Girl, Righteous Babe, 1995.
Dilate, Righteous Babe, 1996.
(With Utah Phillips) The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere, Righteous Babe, 1996.
Living in Clip (live), Righteous Babe, 1997.
Little Plastic Castle, Righteous Babe, 1998.
Up Up Up Up Up Up, Righteous Babe, 1999.
(With Utah Phillips) Fellow Workers, Righteous Babe, 1999.
To the Teeth, Righteous Babe, 1999.
Revelling: Reckoning, Righteous Babe, 2001.
So Much Shouting, So Much Laughter (live), Righteous Babe, 2002.
Evolve, Righteous Babe, 2003.

Sources
Periodicals
Billboard, October 22, 1994; November 4, 1995; November 11, 1995.
Curve, May 2001.
Down Beat, November 1999.
Entertainment Weekly, May 2, 1997.
Guitar Player, December 1994; November 2002.
Interview, July 1995.
Los Angeles Times, November 15, 1994.
Ms., November/December 1995.
New Yorker, October 2, 1995.
New York Magazine, October 2, 1995.
New York Newsday, June 30, 1995.
New York Times, September 28, 1995.
Out, September 1995.
People, August 4, 1997.
Progressive, May 2000.
Rolling Stone, August 24, 1995; November 16, 1995.
Sojourners, May-June 2002.
Spin, December 1995.
Time, February 9, 1998; April 23, 2001.
Time Out, April 24, 1996.
Variety, February 16, 1998.
Village Voice, October 3, 1995.
Washington Post, September 15, 1995.

Online
"Ani DiFranco," All Music Guide, http://www.allmusic.com (June 27, 2003).

"I’m a voting adult and it’s my job to fix it," Salon, http://www.salon.com/ent/music/intf2003/06/10/difranco/print.html (June 27, 2003).
Righteous Babe Records Official Website, http://www.righteousbabe.com (June 27, 2003).
  • Genres: Rock

Biography

A folkie in punk's clothing, Ani DiFranco battled successfully against the Goliath of corporate rock to emerge as one of the most influential and inspirational cult heroines of the 1990s. A resolute follower of D.I.Y. ethos, DiFranco released her records through her own indie label, Righteous Babe, slowly but steadily building a devout grassroots following on the strength of a relentless tour schedule. An ardent feminist and an open bisexual, her songs tackled issues like rape, abortion, and sexism with insight and compassion, the music's empowering attitude and anger tempered by the poignant candor of singer/songwriter confessionalism.

DiFranco was born in Buffalo, NY, on September 23, 1970. She began her career at the age of nine, when her guitar teacher helped her land her first gig -- performing a set of Beatles covers -- at an area coffeehouse. Befriended by the likes of Suzanne Vega and Michelle Shocked, she later gave up music to study ballet, but at the age of 14 returned to the guitar and began composing her first songs. A year later, alienated from her crumbling family structure, she left home, living with friends while making the rounds of the Buffalo folk club circuit.

DiFranco had written over 100 original songs by the age of 19, and after briefly studying art, she relocated to New York City to further her musical aspirations; besieged by requests from fans for tapes of her performances, she recorded a demo and pressed 500 copies of a self-titled cassette to sell at shows. The tape -- a Spartan acoustic folk collection of intensely personal essays on failed relationships and gender inequities -- quickly sold out, and in 1990 DiFranco founded Righteous Babe to better distribute her recordings, which were slowly spreading across the country on the strength of a substantial word-of-mouth following.

In 1991, after issuing the assured Not So Soft, DiFranco hit the road alone, touring the nation in her Volkswagen and playing gigs wherever she could find them. Her cult blossomed, and her distinct image -- shaved head, tattoos, and body piercings -- soon became the de rigueur look for her fans as well. As albums like 1992's Imperfectly and 1993's Puddle Dive expanded her musical ambitions as well as her following, DiFranco became the subject of considerable major-label interest, yet she steadfastly rejected all offers as Righteous Babe grew to become a highly viable business venture.

DiFranco continued playing over 200 dates a year, and soon even the mainstream media took notice of her cottage-industry music; after 1994's masterful Out of Range, she exploded with the following year's Not a Pretty Girl, which garnered notice from outlets ranging from CNN to The New York Times. A sprawling, eclectic work detailing a heated love affair with a man (much to the chagrin of her lesbian followers), 1996's Dilate even debuted in the Top 100 of the Billboard charts, a stunning achievement for an independent release. The live set Living in Clip followed in 1997.

Early in 1998, DiFranco released the studio effort Little Plastic Castle; her most musically diverse release yet, it also was her highest-charting album to date, and set the stage for the release of Up Up Up Up Up Up the following year. Another new LP, To the Teeth, appeared in 1999 as well, and in mid-2000 came the release of the odds-and-ends compilation Swing Set. Revelling: Reckoning appeared in spring 2001. In 2002, DiFranco trudged on; a road warrior at heart, she issued the double-disc So Much Shouting, So Much Laughter in September, her first live album since 1997's Living in Clip. The So Much Shouting set captured handpicked favorites by DiFranco and three previously unreleased songs.

The following year's Evolve added funk, jazz, and Latin elements to the mix, while 2004's Educated Guess was performed completely by DiFranco. Knuckle Down, co-produced by Joe Henry, arrived in 2005. The eighth disc in her Official Bootleg series, Carnegie Hall (recorded live on April 2, 2002), was released in the spring of 2006, and then -- shortly after the singer announced she was pregnant -- her studio album Reprieve arrived that same August. DiFranco gave birth to her daughter in January 2007 and released another Official Bootleg, Hamburg, Germany, in 2008. Red Letter Year appeared later in 2008, featuring songs inspired by the impending presidential race, DiFranco's baby daughter, and her partner/producer Mike Napolitano. 2012's Which Side Are You On?, the sixteenth studio album from the alternative folk legend, featured twelve new songs, including the rousing title cut, which was a re-working of a song made popular by Pete Seeger, who lent his distinctive voice and banjo to DiFranco's rendition. ~ Jason Ankeny, Rovi
Wikipedia on Answers.com:

Ani DiFranco

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Ani DiFranco

Ani DiFranco performing at the Ancienne Belgique in 2007
Background information
Birth name Angela Marie DiFranco
Born September 23, 1970 (1970-09-23) (age 41)
Buffalo, New York
Genres Folk rock, indie, alternative
Occupations Singer-songwriter, musician
Instruments Guitar, bass guitar, tenor guitar, vocals, percussion, piano
Years active 1990–present
Labels Righteous Babe
Website righteousbabe.com

Ani DiFranco (play /ˈɑːn/; born Angela Maria DiFranco on September 23, 1970) is an American Grammy Award-winning[1] singer, guitarist, poet, and songwriter. She has released more than 20 albums,[2] and is widely considered a feminist icon.[3][4][5]

Contents

Biography

DiFranco was born in Buffalo, New York,[6] to Elizabeth and Dante DiFranco, who had met while attending MIT.[7][8] She started playing Beatles covers at local bars and busking with her guitar teacher, Michael Meldrum,[9] at the age of nine.

In 1989, DiFranco started her own record company, Righteous Records.[2] Early in her career DiFranco worked with manager Dale Anderson, a writer for the Buffalo News, who started another record label called Hot Wings Records, after the two parted ways, that released similar sounding material. Her self-titled debut album was issued on the label in the winter of 1990. Later, she relocated to New York City, where she took poetry classes at The New School and toured vigorously for the next 15 years, essentially pausing briefly only to record albums.

Righteous Records was renamed Righteous Babe Records in 1994.

In 1998, DiFranco's drummer, Andy Stochansky, left the band to pursue a solo career as a singer-songwriter. Their rapport during live shows is showcased on the 1997 album Living in Clip.

In 2002 her rendition of Greg Brown's "The Poet Game" appeared on Going Driftless: An Artists' Tribute to Greg Brown.

Her father died early in the summer of 2004.[10] In July 2005, DiFranco developed tendinitis and took a hiatus from touring. Her 2005 tour concluded with an appearance at the FloydFest World Music and Genre Crossover festival in Floyd, Virginia. She returned to touring in late April 2006, including a performance at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival on April 28 and a performance at the Calgary Folk Music Festival on July 30, 2006.

In 2005 she collaborated with fellow folk singer Dar Williams on "Comfortably Numb", a Pink Floyd cover song from Williams' album My Better Self.

DiFranco's album Reprieve was released on August 8, 2006. It was previously leaked on iTunes for several hours around July 1, 2006, due to an error saying it was released in 2002.[11] DiFranco performed with Cyndi Lauper on "Sisters of Avalon", a track from Lauper's 2005 collection The Body Acoustic.

On September 11, 2007, she released the first retrospective of her career, titled Canon and for the first time, a collection of poetry in a book titled Verses.

Red Letter Year was released on September 30, 2008. Says DiFranco about the album:

"When I listen to my new record, I hear a very relaxed me, which I think has been absent in a lot of my recorded canon. Now I feel like I’m in a really good place. My partner Mike Napolitano co-produced this record – my guitar and voice have never sounded better, and that’s because of him. I’ve got this great band and crew. And my baby, she teaches me how to just be in my skin, to do less and be more."[12]

DiFranco performed a live webcast from Ex'pression College for Digital Arts[13] on June 24, 2010. She debuted a selection of new material, including the songs "Which Side Are You On?" (a reworking of the Florence Reece song with different lyrics penned by DiFranco), "Life Boat", "Unworry", "Promiscuity", "Splinter", "Amendment", "See See..." and "Hearse".

In 2010, DiFranco sued hip-hop horrorcore artist Necro for sampling her song, "Used to You" in a response track called "The Asshole Anthem" on his DIE! album. Due to the lawsuit, the album was reissued without the track.[14]

She has continued touring through 2011. As of 2008 her backing band consists of Todd Sickafoose on upright bass, Allison Miller on drums, and Mike Dillon on percussion and vibes. DiFranco returned to the Calgary Folk Music Festival in July 2008.

She is also a poet and has been featured on Def Jam's poetry hour.

DiFranco plans to release an album of new material on January 17, 2012, titled "¿Which Side Are You On?". Collaborations with Pete Seeger, Ivan Neville, Cyril Neville, Skerik, Adam Levy, Righteous Babe recording artist Anaïs Mitchell, CC Adcock, and a host of New Orleans-based horn players known for their work in such outfits as Galactic, Bonerama, and Rebirth Brass Band have been confirmed.

She and her husband currently reside in New Orleans.[15][16]

Ani DiFranco, RZA, and Steve Albini at
The New Yorker festival in September 2005.

Relationships

DiFranco identifies herself as bisexual,[17][18] and has written songs about love and sex with women and men. She addressed the controversy about her sexuality with the song "In or Out". In 1998, she married sound engineer Andrew Gilchrist in a Unitarian Universalist service in Canada, overseen by folk singer Utah Phillips.[citation needed] DiFranco and Gilchrist divorced five years later.

DiFranco gave birth to a daughter, Petah Lucia DiFranco Napolitano,[19] at her Buffalo home on January 20, 2007. She married the child's father Mike Napolitano,[20] also her regular producer, in 2009.

Critical reception

DiFranco has been a critical darling for much of her career, if not always a commercial one, with a career album average of 72 on Metacritic[21]. DiFranco has been toasted by the Buffalo News as the "Buffalo's leading lady of rock music." The News further said:

"Through the Righteous Babe Foundation, DiFranco has backed various grassroots cultural and political organizations, supporting causes ranging from abortion rights to gay visibility."[22]

Starting in 2003, DiFranco was nominated four consecutive times for Best Recording Package at the Grammy Awards, winning in 2004, for Evolve.

On July 21, 2006, DiFranco received the "Woman of Courage Award"[23] at the National Organization for Women (NOW) Conference and Young Feminist Summit in Albany, New York. Past winners have included singer and actress Barbra Streisand and Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. DiFranco is one of the first musicians to receive the award, given each year to a woman who has set herself apart by her contributions to the feminist movement.

Music

Guitar style and collaborations

DiFranco's guitar playing is often characterized by a signature staccato style,[24][25] rapid fingerpicking and many alternate tunings. She delivers many of her lines in a speaking style notable for its rhythmic variation. Her lyrics, which often include alliteration, metaphor, word play and a more or less gentle irony, have also received praise for their sophistication.

Although DiFranco's music has been classified as both folk rock and alternative rock, she has reached across genres since her earliest albums. DiFranco has collaborated with a wide range of artists including musician Prince, who recorded two songs with DiFranco in 1999 ("Providence" on her To the Teeth album, and "I Love U, but I Don't Trust U Anymore" on Prince's Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic album); folk musician and social activist Utah Phillips (on The Past Didn't Go Anywhere in 1996 and Fellow Workers in 1999); funk and soul jazz musician Maceo Parker; and rapper Corey Parker (singer). She has used a variety of instruments and styles: brass instrumentation was prevalent in 1998's Little Plastic Castle; a simple walking bass in her 1997 cover of Hal David and Burt Bacharach's "Wishin' and Hopin'"; strings on the 1997 live album Living in Clip and 2004's Knuckle Down; and electronics and synthesisers in 1999's To the Teeth and 2006's Reprieve. Samples from the track "Coming Up" were used by DJ Spooky in his album Live Without Dead Time, produced for AdBusters Magazine in 2003.

DiFranco herself noted that "folk music is not an acoustic guitar – that's not where the heart of it is. I use the word 'folk' in reference to punk music and rap music. It's an attitude, it's an awareness of one's heritage, and it's a community. It's subcorporate music that gives voice to different communities and their struggle against authority."[26]

Lyrics, politics and religion

Although much of DiFranco's material is autobiographical, it is often also strongly political. Many of her songs are concerned with contemporary social issues such as racism, sexism, sexual abuse, homophobia, reproductive rights, poverty, and war. The combination of personal and political is partially responsible for DiFranco's early popularity among politically active college students, particularly those of the left wing, some of whom set up fan pages on the web to document DiFranco's career as early as 1994. DiFranco's rapid rise in popularity in the mid-1990s was fueled mostly by personal contact and word of mouth rather than mainstream media.[citation needed]

DiFranco has expressed political views outside of her music. During the 2000 U.S. presidential election, she actively supported and voted for Green Party candidate Ralph Nader.[27][28][29] She supported Dennis Kucinich in the 2004 and 2008 Democratic primaries. Kucinich appeared with her at a number of concerts across the country during both primary seasons.[30][31] DiFranco went on to perform at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

Early in her career, DiFranco considered herself an atheist. On the subject of religion, DiFranco has stated:

"Well, I'm not a religious person myself. I'm an atheist. I think religion serves a lot of different purposes in people's lives, and I can recognize the value of that, you know, the value of ceremony, the value of community, or even just having a forum to get together and talk about ideas, about morals – that's a cool concept. But then, of course, institutional religions are so problematic."[32]

Since becoming a mother and releasing her Red Letter Year album in 2009, DiFranco has talked in concert about "finding religion".[citation needed] At concerts she has stated that her song "The Atom" is an "alternative Christian proposal". In "The Atom" she sings ”Oh holy is the atom/ The truly intelligent design/ To which all of evolution/ Is graciously aligned.” In Reno in 2008 prior to singing "The Atom", she said "I've kind of gotten religion lately, I took a sweet religion, one I am sort of familiar with and sprayed a can of patriarchy-off and this is what I came up with."[citation needed]

Label independence

DiFranco was one of the first independent artists to own her own label, which has allowed her a considerable degree of creative freedom over the years, including, for example, providing all instrumentals and vocals and recording the album herself at her home on an analog 8-track reel to reel, and handling much of the artwork and packaging design for her 2004 album Educated Guess.[33] She has referenced this independence from major labels in song more than once, including "The Million You Never Made" (Not A Pretty Girl), which discusses the act of turning down a lucrative contract, "The Next Big Thing" (Not So Soft), which describes an imagined meeting with a label head-hunter who evaluates the singer based on her looks, and "Napoleon" (Dilate), which sympathizes sarcastically with an unnamed friend who did sign with a label.

DiFranco has occasionally joined with Prince in discussing publicly the problems associated with major record companies. Righteous Babe Records employs a number of people in her hometown of Buffalo. In a 1997 open letter to Ms. magazine[34] she expressed displeasure that what she considers a way to ensure her own artistic freedom was seen by others solely in terms of its financial success.

Discography

Studio albums

Compilations

Live albums

  • 1994 – An Acoustic Evening With
  • 1994 – Women in (E)motion (German Import)
  • 1997 – Living in Clip
  • 2002 – So Much Shouting, So Much Laughter
  • 2004 – Atlanta – 10.9.03 (Official Bootleg series)
  • 2004 – Sacramento – 10.25.03 (Official Bootleg series)
  • 2004 – Portland – 4.7.04 (Official Bootleg series)
  • 2005 – Boston – 11.16.03 (Official Bootleg series)
  • 2005 – Chicago – 1.17.04 (Official Bootleg series)
  • 2005 – Madison – 1.25.04 (Official Bootleg series)
  • 2005 – Rome – 11.15.04 (Official Bootleg series)
  • 2006 – Carnegie Hall – 4.6.02 (Official Bootleg series – available in stores)
  • 2007 – Boston – 11.10.06 (Official Bootleg series)
  • 2008 – Hamburg – 10.18.07 (Official Bootleg series)
  • 2009 – Saratoga, CA – 9.18.06 (Official Bootleg series)
  • 2009 – Chicago – 9.22.07 (Official Bootleg series)
  • 2010 – Live at Bull Moose Music (Limited edition)[36]

EPs

Demos

  • 1989 – Demo tape (Ani DiFranco)|Demo tape (unreleased)

Videos

  • 2002 – Render: Spanning Time with Ani DiFranco
  • 2004 – Trust
  • 2008 – Live at Babeville

Poetry

  • 2004 – "Self-evident: poesie e disegni (Ani DiFranco book)|Self-evident: poesie e disegni"
  • 2007 – Verses (Ani DiFranco book)|Verses

Other contributions

  • 2004 – WFUV: City Folk Live VII – "Bliss Like This"
  • 2006 – Jason Karaban – "Doomed to Make Choices"
  • 2008 – The City That Care Forgot (Dr. John album)|The City That Care Forgot – Contributed backing vocals to the title track of Dr. John's 2008 album.
  • 2009 – Jason Karaban – "Sobriety Kills"
  • 2010 – Anais Mitchell – "Hadestown"
  • 2011 – Twilight Singers – "Blackbird and the Fox"
  • 2011 – Every Mother Counts – "Present/Infant" (Remix)

See also

References

  1. ^ Evolve Wins the 2004 Grammy Award for Best Recording Package
  2. ^ a b Gene Stout (August 21, 2006). "DiFranco makes time for radical sabbatical: Indie rocker records new album and prepares for motherhood". The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=486202. Retrieved 2008-01-02. [dead link]
  3. ^ "Sound Bites". Daily Texan. September 17, 2002. http://media.www.dailytexanonline.com/media/storage/paper410/news/2002/09/17/Entertainment/Sound.Bites-499123.shtml. Retrieved 2008-01-02. 
  4. ^ Lori Leibovich (March 27, 1998). "Mother Who Think: Hey hey, ho ho, the matriarchy's got to go". Salon. http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/1998/03/27feature.html. Retrieved 2008-01-02. 
  5. ^ "Fame hasn't changed the way DiFranco works: Independently". The Sacramento Bee. April 14, 2000. http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=SB&p_theme=sb&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0EB047DB661B7CA7&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM. Retrieved 2008-01-02. 
  6. ^ Celebritybabynamesblog.com
  7. ^ Ani DiFranco Biography – Discography, Music, Lyrics, Album, CD, Career, Famous Works, and Awards
  8. ^ Dante Americo DiFranco Memorial Page
  9. ^ Notes on the album Open Ended Question
  10. ^ "Still Fighting" Review in Paste. September 2006.
  11. ^ iTunes Mislabeled Release Date as 2002
  12. ^ Shock Records, "Ani DiFranco to Release New Album Red Letters". Retrieved on 08-15-08
  13. ^ Creativeallies.com
  14. ^ Necro: Horror Business
  15. ^ Huff, Quentin B. Ani DiFranco: Red Letter Year. Accessed 18 December 2008.
  16. ^ Farley, Christopher, John. A life in Song. Wall Street Journal, December 5, 2008. Accessed 18 December 2008.
  17. ^ Ani DiFranco, Folksinger and Entrepreneur by Kris Scott Marti, November 28, 2004
  18. ^ Find articles.com, by Achy Obejas, The Advocate, December 9, 1997
  19. ^ "Introducing Petah Lucia DiFranco Napolitano" Celebrity Baby Blog. July 3, 2007.
  20. ^ Dowd, Kathy Ehrich. "Singer Ani DiFranco Welcomes a Daughter." People. January 23, 2007.
  21. ^ Ani DiFranco on Metacritic. Accessed on October 1, 2011.
  22. ^ Hearey, Owen (2006-07-22). "'Righteous Babe' announces she is pregnant". Buffalo News: pp. D1. http://docs.newsbank.com/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info:sid/iw.newsbank.com:AWNB:BNWB&rft_val_format=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&rft_dat=1130D77E50D232B8&svc_dat=InfoWeb:aggregated5&req_dat=0D0CB57AB53DF815. Retrieved 2008-05-11. 
  23. ^ Rolling Stone news
  24. ^ Facts about Ani
  25. ^ Ani DiFranco, Living in Clip by Jon Steltenpohl
  26. ^ Rock Troubadours by Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers
  27. ^ HackWriters.com article: "Ani DiFranco interview".
  28. ^ Rolling Stone magazine article: "Eddie Vedder, Patti Smith Go Green at NYC Nader Rally – Nader rally draws Vedder, DiFranco to Madison Square Garden"
  29. ^ Salon.com article: "The Nader Letters".
  30. ^ Brian Orloff (September 16, 2004). "DiFranco Knuckles Down". Rolling Stone. http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/anidifranco/articles/story/6485503/difranco_knuckles_down. Retrieved 2008-04-03. 
  31. ^ Lauren Gitlin (August 27, 2003). "Ani, Willie Support Kucinich". Rolling Stone. http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/anidifranco/articles/story/5935166/ani_willie_support_kucinich. Retrieved 2007-11-10. 
  32. ^ Rothschild, Matthew (2000-05-09). "Ani DiFranco – folk singer – Interview". The Progressive. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1295/is_5_64/ai_61963258/pg_5. Retrieved 2008-04-10. 
  33. ^ Educated guess article
  34. ^ Interview with Ms. Magazine
  35. ^ MMguide.musicmatch.com Retrieved on 06-06-07
  36. ^ Mainetoday.com Retrieved on 4-21-2010

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Gale Musician Profiles. Contemporary Musicians © 1989-2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
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