{"id":145836,"date":"2024-11-17T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-11-17T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/?p=145836"},"modified":"2024-11-22T12:24:13","modified_gmt":"2024-11-22T20:24:13","slug":"ani-difranco-takes-her-guitar-and-voice-in-a-radical-new-direction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/ani-difranco-takes-her-guitar-and-voice-in-a-radical-new-direction\/","title":{"rendered":"Ani DiFranco Takes Her Guitar and Voice in a Radical New Direction"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ani DiFranco achieved her iconic status by relentlessly storming the 1990s, during which she played well over 3,000 shows, always taking the stage with an acoustic guitar and fake nails electric-taped to her fingers to achieve her kinetic rhythms. For every year of that decade she released an album on her self-owned indie label, Righteous Babe. Since then, she\u2019s continued to tirelessly record and tour, while also expanding her reach\u2014as an activist, impresario, collaborator, parent, and business owner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DiFranco\u2019s latest release, Unprecedented Sh!t,<\/a> <\/em>is a stunner. Nearly every sound on the album\u2014her 23rd\u2014started as a vocal or a guitar, but producer BJ Burton (Bon Iver, Sylvan Esso) and DiFranco have worked them into a vast, dynamic landscape. Much has been said about the percussive attack of DiFranco\u2019s playing, but the depth of feel, time, and sway in her guitar approach is highlighted here, as well as a profound sense of playfulness that is a hallmark of mastery. And her vocal phrasing, which has always been her secret weapon, is cast into sharp relief by Burton\u2019s expert shadings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I first met DiFranco in 1994 at a folk festival where we were both booked. She brought her Alvarez guitar to a 30-second line check on the main stage and proceeded to tear everybody\u2019s head off. The next day she and I did a side-stage song swap together with Dar Williams and Greg Brown. Since then I\u2019ve opened the occasional tour for DiFranco, and she produced my 2016 record Are You Listening?,<\/em> which was released on Righteous Babe. I recently caught up with her via phone to talk shop: the new record, writing, touring, her love of tenor and rubber bridge guitars, and the meaning of the term umwelt.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Ani
Photo: Danny Clinch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s just dive in. What was your first guitar? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a three-quarter-size piece of plywood. I mean, it wasn\u2019t probably literally plywood. Steel-string. I was nine. I can sort of picture it: the guitar had a bubble on the face of it. I think my parents got it at discount because the face had an egg-sized bubble. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A bubble, like someone put it too near a heat lamp? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah, a nice little special bubble. That was my guitar, and I sold it, probably when I was 12. I sold all of my possessions in order to go to camp. I wanted to go to camp! I wish I still had that guitar, just because, but . . . long gone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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