Studio tours: Ani DiFranco has spent a lot of time in Philly this summer, capped off this week with her biggest local gig in years. (photo by michael persico)

Mother I'd Like to Folk

Ani DiFranco brings her act—and her baby—to the Mann.

by Jeffrey Barg

Ani DiFranco: folksinger, poet, rabblerouser … real estate developer?

Not content to just release records, the Buffalo, N.Y., native bought up a crumbling church in her hometown and converted it into a performance space and offices for her Righteous Babe Records, all recently christened with the new DVD Live at Babeville. As if that weren’t enough, in the last year DiFranco also released the book of poetry Verses, and a two-disc career retrospective, Canon. And her new album Red Letter Year is due out in September.

She doesn’t claim to have any designs on Philly real estate, but the Mann’s Fairmount Park digs are scenic enough that before she leaves we need to be sure to get the keys back. Can never trust those folksinger types.

Tell me about Babeville.

“It’s a little art center, a little beacon of creativity in downtown Buffalo. It was an 1870s red sandstone cathedral—a building of a bygone era that was slated for demolition. My friend and manager Scot, who runs Righteous Babe, and the Righteous Babians actually stopped the demolition of that building. Then we just thought, maybe we should buy this building and move in.”

What kind of city is Buffalo?

“Buffalo is like a mini Detroit. It’s a very evacuated city, a very unemployed city. It’s always been alarming to me that if some other country had come in and devastated downtown Buffalo out of malice, we’d be enraged. And yet we’ve done it to ourselves. It’s really unfortunate ’cause that’s a large part of our wealth as a society—our beautiful old buildings and art. [Babeville is] a beautiful, beautiful building that’s now full of people making art.”

You just put out a book of poetry. Do you look at poems differently in a book than on a record?

“My writing for many, many years has been spoken word, writing being just part of the process. It was a bit terrifying to take these spoken-word pieces and try to put them on a page. How do you lay them out so the rhythm is conveyed? It’s a very different medium.”

Was it intimidating?

“Sure. I was worried people were going to look at this shit and realize it’s dumb. It’s sort of like taking a photograph of a dance performance—trying to capture something that moves and make it still.”

How has having a baby changed how you write?

“The process is slowed almost to a halt. I’m still out touring and I take her with me, but writing is something I’ve been very hard-pressed to find time for. It’s very hard, as all parents know, not just to find time but mental space to do that type of work. So writing is something I’m doing less of these days, but I don’t mind that.”

Is that why you figured it’s a good time to do a book of poetry and a best-of album?

“That was my literally my homework while I was pregnant. I told myself I was finally gonna put together that book of poetry and that compilation record. But of course the list was longer than that. I was gonna take piano lessons.”

Was it hard listening to those old albums?

“It was torturous for me. That’s something I never do, for good reason. It was just the perfect time, though, for many reasons—it was very much an end of an era in my life and the beginning of a new one.

“I have a new personal life now and a new creative life ahead of me. So having that happiness of my new family around me fortified my spirit enough to be able to take that self-loathing spiral that comes with listening to my own voice. I knuckled down and made myself do it, and then I’d go focus on the people I love and who love me. It made a nice balance, and it made me able to do that project without losing it.”

What kind of a “new creative life”?

“I have a whole new band I’m working with. We just made a record together. My partner, my baby daddy, is a great record producer, lucky for me. He co-produced this new record for me, which is something I’ve never done. I’ve always made my records completely on my own, and he’s way better at it than I am. So with this new record, everyone who’s heard it says, ‘Your voice sounds so awesome, and this and that, and the production … ’ This is a record I won’t be afraid to listen to in the future.”