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Ani DiFranco
(September 23, 1970 - living) U.S.A.

Ani DiFranco

Singer/songwriter and musician

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Born in Buffalo, New York, DiFranco began her career at the age of nine, when her guitar teacher helped her land her first gig - performing a set of Beatles covers - at an area coffeehouse. Befriended by the likes of Suzanne Vega and Michelle Shocked, she later gave up music to study ballet, but at the age of 14 returned to the guitar and began composing her first songs. A year later, alienated from her crumbling family structure, she left home, living with friends while making the rounds of the Buffalo folk club circuit.

By the age of 19 DiFranco had written over 100 original songs, and after briefly studying art she relocated to New York City to further her musical aspirations. In 1990 DiFranco founded "Righteous Babe Records" to better distribute her recordings, which were slowly spreading across the country on the strength of a substantial word-of-mouth following. The major labels came calling. DiFranco turned them all down.

In 1991, after issuing the assured Not So Soft, DiFranco hit the road alone, touring the nation in her Volkswagen and playing gigs wherever she could find them. As albums like 1992's Imperfectly and 1993's Puddle Dive expanded her musical ambitions as well as her following,

Ani DiFrancoShe decided to use her fame and financial stability to begin to give back to the troubled community from which she'd come. She opened the Righteous Babe offices and a recording studio in downtown Buffalo (and employed her mother). She started an urban renewal project for the city. And she got the Buffalo Symphony Orchestra to play with her on a live album.

DiFranco continued playing over 200 dates a year, and soon even the mainstream media took notice of her cottage-industry music; after 1994's masterful Out of Range, she exploded with the following year's Not a Pretty Girl, which garnered notice from outlets ranging from CNN to the New York Times. 1996's Dilate debuted in the Top 100 of the Billboard charts. The live set Living in Clip followed in 1997.

Early in 1998, DiFranco released the studio effort Little Plastic Castle; her most musically diverse release yet, it also was her highest-charting album to date, and set the stage for the release of Up Up Up Up Up Up the following year.

In 1999 she married her sound engineer, Andrew Gilchrist, affectionately referred to as "Goat Boy." Her most recent projects have included a double studio album and a new live disc, almost constant touring around the world to sold-out shows, and various philanthropic endeavors.

Another new LP, To the Teeth, appeared in 1999 as well and in mid-2000 came the release of the odds-and-ends compilation Swing Set. Revelling: Reckoning appeared in spring 2001. In 2002, DiFranco trudged on; a road warrior at hear, she issued her first live album since 1997's Living In Clip, So Much Shouting, So Much Laughter in September 2002.

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