In fact, it's almost fair to say that I may not be interested in folk music if not for Ani DiFranco. She was the first artist whose work resounded with me, who identified herself as a folk artist. After hearing her records, I went to the record store (remember record stores?) and started buying at random from the "Folk" section.
That's beside the point. I went to school in Buffalo, NY, which happens to be Ani's hometown. It was there that I fell in love with performing folk music, the community that surrounds the genre, and the songs and traditions from which we, as folksingers, learn and are inspired.
The Church, a.k.a. Babeville
For some time, I've been following the progress on what has been referred to as The Church (now Babeville). It was built in the late 19th Century and served two separate congregations before being abandoned. In its ongoing mission to renovate the city of Buffalo, about a decade ago, the powers-that-be had their eye on tearing down the old structure to make way for who-knows-what. Enter the Righteous Babe Foundation, headed by Ani DiFranco and RBR CEO Scot Fisher. They saved the building, expecting they could use it to house the Righteous Babe Records offices, which had, until that point, called an upper floor of a Main Street office building home. They were outgrowing their office, here was a bigger building. It seemed perfect.Of course, reality being what it is, the building needed a few repairs, a few top-dollar legal meanderings and the communing of various Buffalo-based companies and organizations to join in. All the while, the Little Folksinger That Could was also trying to maintain a rigorous touring and record-releasing schedule while figuring out how to adapt her self-started indie label to an ever-changing industry. Then, of course, there was the severe bout of tendonitis in both wrists, a pregnancy, a 9/11 tragedy, a hurricane that nearly destroyed the other town she was living in and, one can only guess, the mundane day-to-day demands of life in general.
The concerts presented in her new DVD, Live at Babeville (due out April 1, 2008), are the proverbial period at the end of that sentence. And now I can get to talking about the performances.
Live in Concert
Having been to my fair share of Ani DiFranco concerts, in venues ranging from tiny dive bars to huge theaters and festivals, I've come to learn what one can expect to happen when Ani DiFranco steps on a stage with her guitar. She always looks smaller than you remember her, always beaming from ear to ear. There's generally, the last several years, an exceptionally tight—one might say magically so—band backing her up. There are bound to be some songs you forgot about, that she manages to have remembered, reworked, and pulled out just to blow your mind all over again.Then there are the new songs, approached with a modicum of trepidation. Is it possible that, after 20 years and more than as many albums, thousands of performances, awards, accolades, and let's not forget one of the most loyal and (sometimes maybe too?) adoring audiences, that Ani DiFranco still wonders if people will get the new song?
If she does, she's at least learned how to move quickly past the nerves and let the song present itself. Here, she sings two tunes that haven’t yet appeared on a studio recording:
New Songs and Highlights
"Present/Infant" speaks to her relatively newly acquired motherhood, the daughter that now relies on her, and how having a child can transform the life of a staunch feminist."Alla This" is old school Ani through new school lenses, looking at a world that hasn’t changed at near the pace one may have hoped when they were 19. In one particularly biting line, she sings: "I will look at everything around me / and I will vow to bear in mind / that all of this was just someone's idea / it could just as well be mine."
As for the classics, "Sunday Morning" is a highlight, paying tribute to some past relationship, painting a picture of a love so pure and simple, and then nailing you with the heartbreak of it all at the end. It works nicely with some of the older songs like "Not a Pretty Girl," which still rolls out with the same dichotomous blend of sadness and empowerment that it did back in '95. Other stellar performances include "Paradigm," "In the Way," and "Hypnotized."
The Overall Performance
Stylistically, it's a much more reserved pair of performances than I remember from my early 20s (and hers). Nowadays, the Ani DiFranco band consists of Allison Miller on drums, Todd Sickafoose on bass, and Mike Dillon on vibes. Each of these folks is exquisite on their instrument, and it would be surprising at this point to see DiFranco surround herself with anything less than the best. Still, Miller's gift is jazz drumming—knowing when to attack and when to let go, when to give little more than the echo of a hi-hat fizz. She's a far cry from DiFranco's previous percussionists' dexterous and syncopated, but always-hitting temperaments.Sickafoose and Dillon also come from jazzy backgrounds. Together, they and Miller bring to Ani's unschooled sound something so good, it nearly defies definition.
Live at Babeville is a sweet frozen moment in time, where the foursome seems to be finally figuring each other out. Where DiFranco, the band leader, has found her footing and figured a trick to balancing her roles as poet, singer, songwriter, activist, artist, and icon.
Speaking of icons, there is also The Church, a.k.a. Babeville. Now in its third lifetime, it has a new opportunity to realize its own artistic greatness...thanks to one local folksinger and her friends.
More on Babeville and the events taking place there at the Righteous Babe Babeville web site.
