Ani DiFranco Launches Righteous Babe Radio

Singer-songwriter Ani DiFranco released her self-titled debut in 1990 on her own Righteous Babe Records. She’s recorded and toured ever since.

Now, she’s just announced her newest venture, Righteous Babe Radio. The online radio station will emphasize live music, bootlegs, book excerpts, talks, interviews and other spoken word projects from DiFranco, Righteous Babe artists and many more.

The online station officially launched April 15 with a broadcast of DiFranco’s show in Atlanta from the Variety Playhouse in 2013.

Although she had originally been approached years before to host her own radio show, DiFranco passed with her firm belief of self-sufficiency intact.

“Sharing the music of my brilliant friends and collaborators… nerding out on revered influences… amplifying the sounds and words of my political and cultural inspirations. (In my fantasy, this is all magically at my fingertips!),” she says in a statement. “I love national public radio, I love community radio, I love college radio. When I’ve lived in different cities, at different times in my life, I’ve kept company with different stations and those stations have felt like integral parts of my experience of each city. Living [not super commercial] radio has been a companion to me my whole life. I shudder to think where our ‘informed electorate’ would be without NPR. I’ve never been lonely in New Orleans thanks to OZ. In the aftermath of Katrina, even local talk radio became an essential community bulletin and information lifeline.”

A 24-hour station, Righteous Babe Radio will feature previously unreleased live DiFranco shows from the archives that will air at 9pm CT on Wednesday, Friday and Saturdays . Before these live shows, at 8pm CT, RBR Radio will feature an hour of music from the many artists with whom DiFranco has shared the stage, including Anais Mitchell, Pieta Brown, Peter Mulvey and others.

RBR Radio also will feature an interview series airing at noon CT on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The shows might feature something from DiFranco’s book tour or interviews other artists sheltering in place.

“We’ll move forward together to make this station as righteous and informative as it can be,” says DiFranco.

Photo: GMDThree