Ani DiFranco

Ani DiFranco built one of the most independent careers in music. She started her own label at nineteen, put out every album on it, and toured relentlessly with an acoustic guitar played like a percussion instrument and songs that mixed the personal and the political.

Career

DiFranco founded Righteous Babe Records in 1989, aged nineteen, and released her self-titled debut album in 1990. Every album since has come out on her own label. She toured steadily for the next fifteen years, and Living in Clip (1997) became her first gold record.

Her mentor was Pete Seeger, and in the 1990s she made two albums with the storyteller Utah Phillips, setting his stories to her music. In 1995 she performed at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame concert that launched the Woody Guthrie Archives. She won the 2004 Grammy for Best Recording Package for Evolve, received the Woody Guthrie Award in 2009, published her memoir No Walls and the Recurring Dream in 2019, and made her Broadway debut as Persephone in Hadestown in 2024.

Activism

In 1999 she created the Righteous Babe Foundation to support grassroots causes, and she has campaigned against war and the death penalty. In 2009 she revived the old union song "Which Side Are You On?", which became the title of her 2012 album.

Songs to know

• "32 Flavors", later a hit for Alana Davis
• "Which Side Are You On?"
• "Napoleon" and "Buildings & Bridges"

Selected albums

Fans of her songwriting may also like Greg Brown, whose tribute album she sang on.