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Ani DiFranco to play Bardavon
11.4.08
(Poughkeepsie, N.Y.)-- Ani DiFranco performs at the Bardavon on Wednesday, November 19 at 7:30pm. Pieta Brown will open for Ani DiFranco.
Ani DiFranco was born in Buffalo, New York to mother Elizabeth and father Dante, both graduates of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She started playing Beatles covers at local bars and busking with her guitar teacher, Michael Meldrum, at the age of nine. Ten years later in 1989, DiFranco started her own record company, "Righteous Records" (renamed Righteous Babe Records in 1994). Prior to the renaming of Righteous Records to Righteous Babe Records, DiFranco worked with manager Dale Anderson, a writer for the Buffalo News, who later started another record label called Hot Wings Records when the two parted ways. Hot Wings released the work of Buffalo area female musical performers with styles similar to that of DiFranco. Early releases of her CDs produced prior to 1994 are labeled with the original Righteous Records label. Her self-titled debut album was issued on the label in the winter of 1990. Later, she relocated to New York City, where she took poetry classes at The New School and toured vigorously.
DiFranco identifies herself as bisexual, and has written songs about love and sex with both genders. She addressed the controversy about her sexuality with the song "In or Out." In 1998, she married sound engineer Andrew Gilchrist in a Unitarian Universalist service in Canada, overseen by U.U. minister Utah Phillips. Numerous media sources reported that her fans felt betrayed by her union with a man. DiFranco and Gilchrist divorced five years later.
DiFranco's father died early in the summer of 2005. In July of that year, DiFranco developed tendinitis and took a hiatus from touring. (DiFranco had toured almost continuously in the preceding fifteen years, only taking brief breaks to record studio albums.) Her 2005 tour concluded with an appearance at the FloydFest World Music and Genre Crossover festival in Floyd, Virginia. DiFranco returned to touring in late April 2006, including a performance at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival on April 28 and a performance at the renowned Calgary Folk Music Festival on July 30, 2006. DiFranco gave birth to a daughter, Petah Lucia DiFranco Napolitano, at her Buffalo home on January 20, 2007. The child's father is DiFranco's boyfriend Mike Napolitano, the co-producer of DiFranco's 2006 release Reprieve. She has continued touring into 2008 with a backing band consisting of Todd Sickafoose on upright bass, Allison Miller on drums, and Mike Dillon on
percussion and vibes. DiFranco returned to the Calgary Folk Music Festival in July 2008.
On July 21, 2006, DiFranco received the "Woman of Courage Award" at the National Organization for Women (NOW) Conference and Young Feminist Summit in Albany, New York. DiFranco is 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. DiFranco has been toasted by the Buffalo News as the "Buffalo's leading lady of rock music." The News further said: "Through the Righteous Babe Foundation, DiFranco has backed various grassroots cultural and political organizations, supporting causes such as abortion rights and gay visibility." Since 2003, DiFranco has been nominated four consecutive times for Best Recording Package at the Grammy Awards, one of which she won, in 2004, for Evolve.
DiFranco's guitar playing is often characterized by a signature staccato style, rapid fingerpicking and many alternate tunings. She delivers many of her lines in a speaking style notable for its rhythmic variation. Her lyrics, which often include alliteration, metaphor, word play and a more or less gentle irony, have also received praise for their sophistication.
Although DiFranco's music has been classified as both folk rock and alternative rock, she has reached across genres since her earliest albums. DiFranco has collaborated with a wide range of artists including pop musician Prince, folk musician and social activist Utah Phillips (on "The Past Didn't Go Anywhere" in 1996 and "Fellow Workers" in 1999), funk and soul jazz musician Maceo Parker and rapper Corey Parker. She has used a variety of instruments and styles: brass instrumentation was prevalent in 1998's Little Plastic Castle, a simple walking bass in her 1997 cover of Hal David and Burt Bacharach's "Wishin' and Hopin'," strings on the 1997 live album Living in Clip and 2004's Knuckle Down, and electronics and synthesisers in 1999's To the Teeth and in 2006's Reprieve.
DiFranco herself noted that "folk music is not an acoustic guitar - that's not where the heart of it is. I use the word 'folk' in reference to punk music and rap music. It's an attitude, it's an awareness of one's heritage, and it's a community. It's subcorporate music that gives voice to different communities and their struggle against authority."
The daughter of two preachers' kids, Pieta Brown spent her childhood in Iowa and Alabama amidst a broken but very musical family. In her bare-bones bohemian upbringing in Iowa there was no electricity or running water. There, Pieta was exposed to traditional and rural folk music through her father, two-time Grammy nominee Greg Brown. Later, while spending time in Birmingham, Alabama, with her full-time working mother, Pieta drew on all these influences and began writing poetry.
By the time she hit her early 20s, Brown had already gained a local reputation as a gifted performer and it wasn't too long before she came to the attention of Lucinda Williams' guitarist and bandleader Bo Ramsey. He subsequently co-produced In The Cool in 2005 - a release that was named one of the year's best by Amazon.com and a number of newspapers across America. It also broke the Top 20 of the Americana Music Association radio chart and the Top 30 on the AAA radio chart.
Remember The Sun finds Brown writing and recording on a deeper level altogether. Recorded and mixed by Tom Tucker (Jonny Lang, Lucinda Williams, Prince) in Minneapolis, the album boasts a stellar, flexible core group featuring Pieta singing and playing acoustic and electric guitars, piano and Wurlitzer piano, with Bo Ramsey providing his trademark array of riveting guitar soundscapes. Pieta's eagerness to expand the scope of her musical palette has led to fruitful (and ongoing) collaborations with such notable and disparate artists as Calexico, The Pines, The Diplomats of Solid Sound, Iris Dement and her father. "Long before I ever put a record out there for somebody else to hear, my aim was to be a great artist, and that's what I'll always be going after. All my life, I've been close to writing and music and all kinds of art...and that closeness continues to drive me."
Tickets for Ani DiFranco at Bardavon on Wednesday, November 19, 2008 at 7:30pm are available for $44.50 (Adult) and $39.50 (Bardavon Member). Purchase your tickets at the Bardavon Box Office, 35 Market Street, Poughkeepsie, 845.473.2072 or at the UPAC Box Office, 601 Broadway Kingston, 845.339.6088 or by contacting TicketMaster at www.TicketMaster.com or 845.454.3388. Please note that Bardavon Member benefits are not available thru TicketMaster. Bardavon is handicapped accessible and offers secure and convenient parking. For more information please visit www.bardavon.org.
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