Ani DiFranco didn't set out to become the grrrl-power poster
child and goddess of indie labels when she started Righteous
Babe Records in 1990. She'd rather not be any kind of larger-than-life
symbol, although those two characterizations don't chafe too much.
It's the shrewd businesswoman depiction she really hates.
DiFranco still has posted on her Web site a letter she sent to Ms.
magazine in 1997 about an article she believed miscast her as a
hotshot player. "Here I am, publicly morphing into some kinda Fortune
500-young-entrepreneur-from-hell," she wrote, "and all along I thought
I was just a folksinger."
Even her refusal to sell her successful label to one of its many
larger suitors has been misinterpreted. "People have often assumed
that the reason I've remained independent is so I could have total
control," she observes. "The funny thing is that that's basically
just a perk for me."
Speaking via telephone from a tour stop in New England, she confesses,
"I'm independent because of my anti-corporate genes that are coursing
through my blood. I've never known what it is to feel controlled
or manipulated by a corporation."
After years of struggle, she's come to enjoy the luxury of being
able to choose her collaborators (including Prince, Maceo Parker
and Lloyd Maines, Dixie Chick Natalie's dad) and follow her instincts
when it comes to recording and releasing her work. "It's been a
really bitter irony that people attribute some kind of business
savvy or even strategy to what I've done with my life," she says,
"when it was an aversion to business, and the priorities of capital,
that made me make the decisions I did along the way."
Coyness aside, Ani really is more than "just a folksinger." She
possesses a wide vocal range and amazing acoustic guitar skills,
plus the agility to move from spare folk songs to intricate jazz
arrangements to funk, rock and even hip-hop -- all the while baring
her soul in intelligent, sometimes witty or poignant lyrics, whether
they address politics, social issues or her own life.
 Her
distinctly sensual music and stage presence also transcend the folkie
norm. Onstage, she'll stomp like a tribal warrior, undulate like
a funky reggae queen or flutter like a graceful ballet dancer, never
failing to come off as effortlessly hip. She's also leaned toward
punky outrageousness in appearance, shaving her dome or dying her
hair green or tying her dreadlocks atop her head for a look comparable
to a sputtering firecracker. And she's been known to use the kind
of boldly descriptive sexual terms one won't hear on the radio,
the kind we weren't used to hearing women say in song at all until
she broke the barrier. With lyrics referencing relationships with
women and men, she also endeared herself to the lesbian community
(which eventually became rather over-possessive) and gave journalists
a zesty topic they often made a far bigger deal out of than it deserved.
Most folk singers also haven't delivered more albums in 11 years
than many artists do in their entire careers - without a shred of
major-label support. In addition to producing records for other
artists, she's done 12 of her own, and on April 10 dropped Number
13, the double-disc, Revelling/Reckoning.
Like many women artists before her, DiFranco's actions and transactions
are continually scrutinized. But she doesn't let that impede her
progress. "In terms of the way people perceive me, (among) the people
who know me and know my work, who come to the shows, I feel pretty
understood," she says. "But then there's a lot of people outside
of that who just form opinions based upon media, without ever coming
to a show and seeing what it is that they have an opinion about.
I could probably stay up every night worrying about that, but I'm
not sure what good it would do."
If anything, DiFranco is grateful for the amount of success Righteous
Babe has achieved. She realizes few people have the liberty to release
as much of their own work as they want, or back the efforts of other
non-mainstream artists just because they love the music. "Just to
look around me now and see the difference in my life and those who
are struggling with a (big) record company, it makes me feel like,
'Oh well, it's nice that I get something out of it,'" she says.
When consumers purchase copies of her new album, they'll find the
label's manifesto right there on the removable UPC code wraparound
sleeve (the album's lavish cardboard packaging doesn't lend itself
to the usual code placement on those pain-in-the-ass sticky strips).
"Righteous Babe Records is artist-run and artist-centered," it reads.
"Always has been, always will be. We believe it's possible to make
good music, get it out to people, and pay the bills without
compromising our principles."
There's also a shoutout to Buffalo, N.Y., where DiFranco still lives
and where the label is based, plus a thank-you to fans "for helping
to keep the spirit of grassroots music alive in this era of multinational
megamergers by shelling out your hard-earned bucks for this album."
 DiFranco
hasn't lined her own pockets too heavily with those bucks, however.
Though she's comfortable and doesn't have to worry about paying
her bills, she says she's not rich. To her, success means the opportunity
to continue making non-mainstream music and support causes she believes
in. It must be noted, however, that even though her label is named
Righteous Babe, and she has a rep as a folkie protest singer and
champion of the downtrodden, DiFranco usually doesn't come off as
preachy or strident, or even particularly righteous - at least,
not self-righteous.
"I don't see my own work in terms of finger-pointing," she says.
"People who stereotype me as an angry person (come) from very far
outside of myself and my community … It's funny because, in my experience,
the people who bring the most anger, the most rage over injustices,
onto the stage, into their work, those are the nicest people. I
mean, the people who give a fuck."
In a perfectly sweet, happy-sounding voice, she notes, "Just because
you're being critical of your government or of your society doesn't
mean that it's negative at all."
Woody Guthrie had the right idea, according to DiFranco. The father
of protest songs and folk music, an inspiration she regards as a
man ahead of his time, believed that music ultimately was supposed
to make people feel good. "One thing that Woody did brilliantly,"
she says, "was to really point at what was going on but to do so
in such an uplifting way."
DiFranco had a chance to get to know Guthrie's work more intimately
when she was asked to produce and release an album from the Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum's 1996 tribute concert, which featured
live performances by Bruce Springsteen, the Indigo Girls, Billy
Bragg, herself and several Guthrie contemporaries. 'Til We Outnumber
'Em, released in May of 2000, gave her a new regard for the
famed Dust Bowl troubadour's work.
"I don't think I had ever really heard his songs viscerally; I don't
think I was ever able to listen through the difference in time and
place and language and style," DiFranco explains. "But through making
that record, I was really enlightened to his writing, just what
a beautiful writer he was … suddenly, the songs just became completely
contemporary."
DiFranco is pleased that more attention is being paid to Guthrie's
musical legacy. "It's nice to see that we at least have the attention
span to look past Bob (Dylan) and see where he came from," she notes.
(Not that she's knocking Dylan, particularly after he gave her the
honor of opening for him on his summer 1997 tour.)
Just as Woody often came up with his words first, DiFranco says
many of her songs begin as poems. "I think I'm so aware oftentimes
of the musicality of speech and the language, of the rhythms of
it, the melodies of the way that we talk. So I hear music in poems,
and in songs, of course, there's poetry there."
Her words "can go either way," she says - they might remain as poems
or morph into song. She uses them in both forms; her performances
often contain powerful, poetry-slam-style deliveries of her spoken-word
compositions.
She also writes from an intensely personal perspective, and her
new album -- which contains one disc of often acoustic tunes with
minimal embellishment, and one of more exploratory, complex jazz-funk
arrangements -- includes more songs about love's complications than
the ills of the world at large. There are intimations of an affair,
of disillusionment, and still, of commitment.
The last song on Reckoning is "In Here," which contains the lyrics:
"When we signed up for forever/we had no idea it was in
here/I guess always is all this and then some/I guess at least that
much is clear."
" I wish I could say I was telling tall tales, but yeah, I've always
written from my experience," she admits. "It's been a really, really
big challenge for me … to write from a much less heroic place than
I've written from in the past." (Thought it's been a struggle, DiFranco
says, she remains married to her husband of three years, engineer
Andrew "Goat Boy" Gilchrist.)
Despite her self-perceived fall from heroism, DiFranco's latest
effort still conveys two qualities she's had since she started singing
in bars at 10: A fierce sense of independence, and a very human
vulnerability. And she's never been afraid of letting the world
see either one.
|
|
