Knuckle Down

Description

Product Description The music on Ani DiFranco's latest CD is as stunning as ever, packed with irresistible melodies, poignant lyrics and viruoso performances. But for the first time in her career, Ani has invited a fellow singer-songwriter to work with her as co-producer is the none other than Joe Henry. She is also joined by more than half a dozen guest musicians, many of whom have played key rols in Ani's recent career, including Todd Sickafoose, Julie Wolf and Andrew Bird. Through 12 new songs as intricatly crafted as short stories, DiFranco creates another unforgettable musical self-portait of a woman coming to grips with love's twists and turns confronting the legacy of her family and learning to live on her own terms. About the Artist Ani DiFranco is a songwriter, vocalist and guitarist perpetually on the move. From the raw "folk punk" of her early albums through the jazz/funk grooves she created during her years touring with a five-piece band to her current work as a solo artist, Anis restless creativity leads her and her listeners into ever more exciting territory. Born in Buffalo, New York, DiFranco was singing and playing guitar in public before she was old enough to drive. As a teenager, the poems shed been writing in "long skinny columns" soon evolved into lyrics, and music became a way for the teenager to talk about the things that mattered most to her: the power dynamics of romantic entanglements, the fragmentation of her family, the choices she watched her friends making, and the state of life in her hometown and her country. The early 1990s brought a temporary relocation to New York and classes in poetry and politics at the New School, but her real education came on weekends, hitting the road with increasing frequency and growing confidence, developing her signature percussive finger picking and dynamic range in order to grab and hold the attention of noisy bar crowds. After just about every one of her funny, outspoken, intimate gigs, shed leave behind a fresh batch of converts eager to spread the word to everyone they knew, via cassettes at first and then CDs. Rather than waiting for some A&R bigwig to sign her, Ani created her own record label, Righteous Babe, eventually turning down potential deals when she realized they had nothing to offer that she couldnt provide herself. Nearly a decade and a half of hard work, glowing word of mouth, and relentless touring later, the self-described "Little Folksinger" is packing joints like Carnegie Hall and amphitheaters around the world, though she still makes each venue she plays feel as cozy as a living room and as sweaty as a neighborhood dive. Over the years, Ani has swapped album appearances with Prince and Maceo Parker, produced recordings by Dan Bern and Janis Ian, performed orchestral versions of her compositions with the Buffalo Philharmonic, helped find new fans for the songs of Woody Guthrie and the stories of Utah Phillips, had her own tunes covered by the likes of Dave Matthews, and Chuck D, recorded duets with both John Gorka and Jackie Chan, and inspired countless other musicians to rewrite the rules of the recording industry by striving for self-sufficiency and refusing to allow art to be subsumed by cold commerce. Through her Righteous Babe Foundation, shes been able to support grassroots cultural and political organizations around the country, and has lent her time and her voice to such diverse pursuits as opposing the death penalty, upholding womens reproductive rights, promoting queer visibility, and preserving historic buildings back in Buffalo (including a long-neglected church currently being transformed into the new headquarters of Righteous Babe). Ani DiFrancos career has been full of surprisesand shes no stranger to change, both sudden and slow. But some things remain unchanged, like her commitment to speaking the truth, as she sees it, without fear or concession. Bruce Cockburn recently observed in Performing Songwriter that Ani considers it part of her job description "to try and reflect real life in [her] songs. The life of the streets; the life of nations; the lives of people coping with power or its absence, looking for joy through the loneliness and pain and the complexities of relationship; the life of the spirit. All these are the stuff of human experience, and human experience is what we all share." She does so with two basic instruments, both of which are also constants in her ever-evolving world: her trusty guitar and her unforgettable voice. Vanity Fair describes the latter as "astonishing. coolly, permanently urgent, tugging at the sleeve or close at the ear, like the murmur of a lover who knows every last secret and decides to stay."