Ani DiFranco

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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.

Ani 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 New York 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 finger picking 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 cassettes at first and then CDs. Rather than waiting for some A&R bigwig to sign her, Ani simply created her own record label, Righteous Babe, eventually turning down legions of potential deals when she realized they had nothing to offer that she couldn't provide herself.

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.

Over the years, Ani DiFrancohas swapped album appearances with Prince and Maceo Parker, 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 both John 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.

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."

Knuckle Down Ani has woven a sensual tapestry of songs, colored with the performances of some very special guests and the first ever appearance of a co-producer, celebrated guitarist and songwriter Joe Henry. The result is a warm, intricately crafted collection — some of the most inviting music of Ani's career. CD Price: $14.97

Educated Guess Her first solo recording in more than a decade, and if you want to get technical, in some ways it's the first 100%-Ani CD ever. This time around, she recorded herself at home on an old analog 8-track reel-to-reel, and the result may be her most intimate and indigenous work yet. CD Price: $14.97

Evolve A batch of thought-provoking, deeply personal songs, it's the definitive musical statement from the Little Folksinger and her 5-piece band, touching on everything from folk and funk to Latin and jazz. CD Price: $14.97

So Much Shouting, So Much Laughter A live, double disc CD that offers up 2 hours of music, including 3 previously unrecorded songs and 20 more compositions from every phase of her career, all recorded with the beloved 6-piece band she toured with from 2000-2002. Disc One, subtitled "Stray Cats," is what Ani calls "a feral collection of set list standards and a few anomalies," by which she means (among other things) versions of songs you won't hear this way anywhere else. Disc Two, "Girls Singing Night," is structured more like one of the shows from her last tours with the band, from walk-on music all the way to the encore, even though the individual tracks come from all over the place. CD Price: $14.97

Revelling Reckoning This CD has been the subject of widespread critical acclaim. Rolling Stone, Spin, the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post are a few of the publications that have sung the album's praises. Half the songs on each disc find Ani flying solo (playing a small orchestra's worth of instruments), while the other half feature the members of her road-tested live band along with guests Maceo Parker and Jon Hassell on horns and Lloyd Maines on pedal steel. CD Price: $14.97

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