subject: Ani Difranco Tickets - Ani Difranco Celebrates The Music Of New Orleans [print this page] Although a native of Buffalo, N.Y., Ani DiFranco resides in New Orleans - when she's not touring, that is! The iconic female folk singer was among the artists featured on the latest project by New Orleans' Preservation Jazz Hall Band. Along with Pete Seeger, Jim James, Andrew Bird, the Blind Boys of Alabama and Merle Haggard, DiFranco is featured on PRESERVATION, a Sony RED Distribution set to arrive on Fat Tuesday (Feb. 16). Benefiting the jazz band's Preservation Hall home, the disc also features Brandi Carlile, Tom Waits and Big Easy native Louis Armstrong.
Ani DiFranco performed her first live gig at just nine years old, performing Beatles covers after her guitar instructor secured her stage time at a local coffeehouse. Although DiFranco gave up music to study ballet in her teens, she left home due to family troubles and joined the folk music circuit in New York City. DiFranco eventually garnered a cult following and her fans urged to her to record a demo tape. She began peddling an eponymous cassette tape, which showcased her acoustic folk. The cassette sold out, prompting DiFranco to found Righteous Babe and subsequently release Not So Soft.
Ani DiFranco embarked on a solo tour in 1991 and her cult following as well as her image-shaved head, ample tattoos and body piercings-made quite an impact. Major labels came calling after DiFranco released Imperfectly (1992) and Puddle Dive (1993), but she refused their courting and forged on with her Righteous Babe label. While performing over 200 dates per year, DiFranco continued to churn out albums like 1994's Out of Range and 1995's Not a Pretty Girl, which attracted praise from as unlikely sources as the New York Times and CNN.
In 1996 DiFranco's album Dilate debuted in the Top 100 on the Billboard charts; quite an achievement for an indie release. The next year she followed up with the live album Living in Clip, her highest-charting album, followed by To the Teeth (1999), Swing Set (2000), Reveling: Reckoning (2001) and the double-disc So Much Shouting: So Much Laughter. After releasing 2002's Evolve, 2004's Educated Guess, 2005's Knuckle Down and Carnegie Hall (recorded live in April 2002 and the eighth in her Official Bootleg series), DiFranco announced she was pregnant and issued her next studio album, Reprieve.
After giving birth to her daughter Petah Lucia DiFranco Napolitano with partner/producer Mike Napolitano (whom she wed earlier this year), DiFranco wasted no time in continuing to release more of the folk-leaning albums that made her an influential female in the genre, such as another Official Bootleg: Hamburg, Germany. In 2008 DiFranco released the politically minded Red Letter Year, her most recent effort to date. Righteous Babe's website says the album "celebrates existence, professes love and tackles thorny political issues with an infectious sense of glee."
Back in April, DiFranco revealed to Billboard online that she was pondering a follow-up to Red Letter Year, saying, "I have a bunch of new songs that I've been playing and kind of workshopping on stage because at the end of this tour I'm going into the studio with my band and start tracking me new shit. The stage is my laboratory, usual." Until then, head to online for Ani DiFranco tickets to see her live, as she has tour dates lined up through April 2010.
