singer/songwriter

Ani DiFranco

1 festival played

Righteous Babe founder who built a career on her own label rather than anyone else's terms — percussive open-tuned guitar and unsparing political folk.

Ani DiFranco was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1970 and began playing bars in the city as a teenager. She set up Righteous Babe Records in 1990 to release her own self-titled debut and has issued her albums through it since, becoming a frequently cited example of an artist working outside the major-label system. Her playing is percussive and rhythmic, often in open or altered tunings and with her fingers taped, and her writing moves between intimate songs and directly political ones addressing feminism, war and American politics. Albums including "Not a Pretty Girl", "Dilate" and "Little Plastic Castle" built her audience through relentless touring, and she has also published a memoir.

singer/songwriter