Press, Offbeat Magazine: Ani DiFranco To Appear At Lafayette’s SOLO Songwriters Festival
There are two halves to Lafayette’s SOLO Songwriters Festival. One is the workshop: several days of songwriters swapping war stories, collaborating and churning out new material while the sun’s out.
The other half is the stage, where the lights go up after the sun goes down and the songs are thrown into the wild. That’s the public face of the songwriter’s trade, where most of us encounter the fruits of inspiration or self-doubt.
Ani DiFranco, who headlines the festival’s Songs Over Style showcase on May 24, has flirted with all kinds of genre affectations, able to curve horn arrangements and New Orleans funk — she adopted New Orleans for a home town in 2008 — around her cutting insight and autobiography. But at the heart of DiFranco’s work is DiFranco herself, frank and nakedly present.