1. Angela Maria "Ani" DiFranco is an American-Canadian singer-songwriter.
53 Facts About Ani DiFranco
1. 2.
Ani DiFranco has released all her albums on her own record label, Righteous Babe.
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Ani DiFranco released a memoir, No Walls and the Recurring Dream, on May 7,2019, via Viking Books and made The New York Times Best Seller list.
4.
On February 9,2024, Ani DiFranco made her Broadway debut in Hadestown as Persephone, reprising the role she played in the concept album of the same name.
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Ani DiFranco was born in Buffalo, New York, on September 23,1970, the daughter of Elizabeth and Dante Americo Ani DiFranco, who had met while attending the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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Ani DiFranco's father was of Italian descent, and her mother was from Montreal.
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Ani DiFranco started playing Beatles covers at local bars and busking with her guitar teacher, Michael Meldrum, at the age of nine.
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Ani DiFranco played them at bars and coffee houses throughout her teens.
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Ani DiFranco graduated from the Buffalo Academy for Visual and Performing Arts high school at 16 and began attending classes at Buffalo State College.
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Ani DiFranco was living by herself, having moved out of her mother's apartment after she became an emancipated minor when she was 15.
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Ani DiFranco started her own record company, Righteous Babe Records, in 1989 at age 19.
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Ani DiFranco released her self-titled debut album in the winter of 1990, shortly after relocating to New York City.
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Ani DiFranco toured steadily for the next 15 years, pausing only to record albums.
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In September 1995, Ani DiFranco participated in a concert at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland Ohio, inaugurating the opening of the Woody Guthrie Archives in New York City.
15.
Ani DiFranco later released a CD on Righteous Babe of the concert Til We Outnumber Em featuring artists such as DiFranco, Billy Bragg, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Arlo Guthrie, Indigo Girls, Dave Pirner, Tim Robbins, and Bruce Springsteen with 100 percent of proceeds going to the Woody Guthrie Foundation and Archives and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum educational department.
16.
Ani DiFranco guest starred on a 1998 episode of the Fox sitcom King of the Hill, as the voice of Peggy's feminist guitar teacher, Emily.
17.
On September 11,2001, Ani DiFranco was in Manhattan and later penned the poem "Self Evident" about the experience.
18.
Ani DiFranco has written and performed many spoken-word pieces throughout her career and was showcased as a poet on the HBO series Def Poetry in 2005.
19.
Since her 2005 release Knuckle Down Ani DiFranco's touring band and recordings have featured bass player Todd Sickafoose and in turns other musicians such as Allison Miller, Andy Borger, Herlin Riley, and Terence Higgins on drums and Mike Dillon on percussion and vibes.
20.
On May 7,2019, Ani DiFranco released a memoir, No Walls and the Recurring Dream, via Viking Books.
21.
In 2021, Ani DiFranco released the album Revolutionary Love which was largely inspired by Valarie Kaur's book See No Stranger.
22.
Ani DiFranco signed the October 2023 Artists4Ceasefire open letter to Joe Biden calling for a ceasefire during the Israeli bombardment of Gaza.
23.
In July 2005, Ani DiFranco developed tendinitis and took a nine-month hiatus from touring.
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In January 2007 Ani DiFranco gave birth to her first child, a daughter, at her Buffalo home.
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Ani DiFranco married the child's father, Mike Napolitano, her regular producer, in 2009.
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Ani DiFranco has resided in the Bywater, New Orleans, neighborhood since 2008.
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Ani DiFranco has spoken critically of cancel culture, saying it is "just gonna get us nowhere" and "The human family can't divorce each other".
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Ani DiFranco herself has received criticism for planning a 2013 songwriting retreat at Nottoway, a former slave plantation.
29.
Ani DiFranco wrote in her memoir that she "[sympathized] with both sides" regarding the controversial trans-exclusionary policies of the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival.
30.
Ani DiFranco has been a critical success for much of her career, with a career album average of 55 on Metacritic.
31.
Ani DiFranco was praised by The Buffalo News in 2006 as "Buffalo's leading lady of rock music".
32.
On July 21,2006, DiFranco received the Woman of Courage Award at the National Organization for Women Conference and Young Feminist Summit in Albany, New York.
33.
Ani DiFranco was 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.
34.
In 2009, Ani DiFranco received the Woody Guthrie Award for being a voice of positive social change.
35.
Ani DiFranco's guitar playing is often characterized by a signature staccato style, rapid fingerpicking and many alternate tunings.
36.
Ani DiFranco delivers many of her lines in a speaking style notable for its rhythmic variation.
37.
Ani DiFranco developed a deep association with folksinger and social activist Utah Phillips throughout the mid-1990s, sharing her stage and her audience with the older musician until his death in 2008 and resulting in two collaborative albums: The Past Didn't Go Anywhere and Fellow Workers.
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The Past is built around Phillips's storytelling, an important part of his art that had not previously been documented on recordings; on the album, Ani DiFranco provides musical settings for his speaking voice.
39.
Ani DiFranco has appeared on several compilations of the songs of Pete Seeger and frequented his Hudson Clearwater Revival Festival.
40.
Ani DiFranco performed with Cyndi Lauper on "Sisters of Avalon" a track from Lauper's 2005 The Body Acoustic album.
41.
Ani DiFranco's spoken word poem "Self Evident" was covered by Public Enemy founder Chuck D's group called Impossebulls.
42.
In 2010, Ani DiFranco played Persephone on Anais Mitchell's album Hadestown.
43.
Ani DiFranco was approached by Zoe Boekbinder to work on their Prison Music Project, an album of collaborations between incarcerated and formerly incarcerated writers and musicians on the outside.
44.
Ani DiFranco's rapid rise in popularity in the mid-1990s was fueled mostly by personal contact and word of mouth rather than mainstream media.
45.
Ani DiFranco cites her anti-corporate ethos for the main reason she decided to start her own label.
46.
In 2004, Ani DiFranco visited Burma in order to learn about the Burmese resistance movement and the country's fight for democracy.
47.
In 2005, when Hurricane Katrina devastated Ani DiFranco's newly adopted home town of New Orleans, she collected donations from fans around the world through The Righteous Babe Store website for the Katrina Piano Fund, helping musicians replace instruments lost in the hurricane, raising over $47,500 for the cause.
48.
Ani DiFranco sits on the board for The Roots of Music, founded by Rebirth Brass Band drummer Derrick Tabb.
49.
Ani DiFranco joined about 500,000 people at the March for Women's Lives in DC in April 2004.
50.
Later in the day, Ani DiFranco played a few songs on the main stage in front of the Capitol, including "Your Next Bold Move".
51.
In 1999, he and Ani DiFranco purchased a decaying church on the verge of demolition in downtown Buffalo and began the lengthy process of restoring it.
52.
Ani DiFranco is a member of the Toronto-based charity Artists Against Racism for which she participated in a radio PSA.
53.
In October 2023, Ani DiFranco signed an open letter to Joe Biden, President of the United States, of artists calling for a ceasefire of the Israeli bombardment of Gaza.