Sun 9/22 @ 8PM
When Ani DiFranco released her debut album in 1990, her intense, confessional, coffeehouse-honed folk music arrived at a time when shallow hair metal and grandiose rock anthems were leaving audiences hungry for something more real and relatable.
If all she did was deliver that and build herself a loyal, unflagging audience in the process, it would have been enough.
But Righteous Babe, the label she founded in 1989 at the age of 18, created a template for other musicians to use ten years in the future, once the age of the Internet, and then digital downloads and file-sharing arrived, allowing any musician willing to work as hard as she did to be their own boss and forego chasing that record label contract that almost always turned out to be a mirage of success.
DiFranco endured withering scorn from arrogant label execs, who couldn’t understand why she refused their largesse.
She continues to do so to this day, releasing the albums she wants on her own schedule, as well as those by other artists she believes in who would probably not be considered to have “commercial potential” by major labels.
She may not be an arena headliner, but she has an audience that really knows and gets her music.
She’ll be at the House of Blues. New York singer/songwriter Ari Hest opens.
Tickets are $28 in advance, $30 day of show.