Ani decided that the best way to get her music out to people who might want to hear it was by starting her own label (the appropriately named Righteous Babe Records). So she walked down to city hall in her home town Buffalo, New York, paid roughly $50, signed the appropriate papers and she was in business. "It was like a joke at the beginning, very theoretical, like "I have my own record company" which means I just put out a tape independently, she says. Along the way, the joke became real. "Now I am a CEO" revelling in the irony of the comment. In no time her eponymous debut album of original compositions (selected from more than one hundredsongs she'd written between the ages of 14 and 19) was being dubbed and circulated from one dorm room to another across North America by enthusiastic fans. The grass roots response to that release and the albums which followed led to lots of offers for shows and within a few short years Ani was moving from coffee houses and college dates to larger theatresand major folk festivals.
Other offers came too from labels big and smaal but in North America Ani refusedthem all, preferring to conduct her career completely on her own terms. As a result, she's not just a singer and songwriter; she also produces each album, designs the cover art, selects artists she wants to work with(from touring musicians Jason Mercer and Andy Stochansky to video directors and t-shirt designers) and sets her own release schedule.
Given Ani's profilic pace, that often means one album follows another wothin months.
In 1996, Ani diFranco, through Righteous Babe Records, signed a licensing deal for Europe with Cooking Vinyl, one of the few remaining truly independent record companies. Her eight album Dilate, realeased in July 1996 was the first release under this agreement.
Contains excerps from an interview in Acoustic Guitar (1995)
This is taken without permission from the inlay of Little Plastic Castle.
