Ani DiFranco

folk-punk, singer-songwriter, protest music

Ani DiFranco is one of her generation's most prominent folk pioneers, but she shows clear influences by singer/songwriters from Woody Guthrie to Joni Mitchell. If you already know and like Ani DiFranco's music, you should check out Dan Bern or Dar Williams.

During her teens, Ani quit playing guitar for a few years to study ballet.

Ani DiFranco - guitar, vocals
Alison Miller - drums, vocals
Todd Sickafoose - bass
Mike Dillon - vibraphone

[Ani DiFranco's full discography]
Ani Difranco (Righteous Babe, 1990)

Out of Range (Righteous Babe, 1994)

Living in Clip (Righteous Babe, 1997)

To The Teeth (Righteous Babe, 1999)

Revelling Reckoning (Righteous Babe, 2001)

Ani DiFranco on feminism and her album Reprieve (2006)
Ani DiFranco on her album Red Letter Year (2008)

Ani DiFranco - Verses
DiFranco's first book of poetry, reviewed.

Ani DiFranco - Reprieve
A biting commentary on the Bush administration.

Ani DiFranco - Canon
A greatest hits collection.

Ani DiFranco - Red Letter Year
An album full of love songs.

Ani DiFranco - Live at Babeville
Concert DVD

"Decree"
"God's Country
"Phase"
"Overlap"
"Way Tight"
"Millennium Theater"

Angela Marie Difranco was born in 1970 in Buffalo, New York. She started playing guitar around the age of nine, and by the time she was in her pre-teen years, she was playing Beatles covers in bars and coffee shops around town. At 15 years old, emancipated and living on her own, the poems she had been writing for years had begun to evolve into song lyrics.

At the age of 19, DiFranco moved to New York City to live and play among all the other folksingers in the Village. During this time, she was also taking classes at the New School, but her weekends were spent touring and playing out in the Folk clubs, bars, festivals, and coffeehouses around the northeastern US.

Her first recording in 1990 sold out rapidly, and she quickly made a second record the following year. She released each on her own Righteous Babe label, which at first was more of a concept than anything. As her career gained more momentum, Ani was courted by A&R reps from major and minor labels, but she continued to turn them down.

Now, after two decades of playing over a hundred shows a year, Difranco is packing clubs from the Hard Rock in Vegas to Carnegie Hall in New York. Her Righteous Babe label employs more than a dozen people in her hometown of Buffalo, and supports the recordings of cutting edge artists from Drums & Tuba to Andrew Bird and Toshi Reagan. And her rhythmic, staccato guitar technique has innovated the way the instrument is played.

Ani DiFranco has continued to keep the pace of releasing about an album each year.