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.
“The song version of Ani is the same as the real life Ani,” she said in an interview about her 1990s classic “32 Flavors. “Just some details may be left out and others a bit exaggerated.”
Check out the video “Binary,” the title track from her 20th record, which was released in 2017. Ani’s rubbed off on New Orleans and vice-versa.
DiFranco’s appearance anchors a week of intimate performances and collaborations among some the best songwriters around. The festival and workshop includes Acadiana heavy-hitters like Michael Doucet and Zachary Richard, Nashville pens like Mary Gauthier and Beth Nielsen Chapman, a rogue’s gallery of celebrated journeymen and even occasional Buddy Holly side man Sonny West.
SOLO is all about the song; everything else can stay at coatcheck. That’s the gist of the workshop approach which was developed in the UK by the Buddy Holly Educational Foundation. The foundation partnered with Lafayette-based promoter Mark Falgout to bring the concept stateside.
On either side of the Atlantic, the workshop and festival is a celebration of the storytellers, the raconteurs, the bards and the confessors. Here, it’s got a South Louisiana spin, and a new South Louisiana at that.
But SOLO’s real hook is the chance to encounter a the work of a songwriter like DiFranco in the raw. The festival has two halves, but the whole thing is about the song.
This radical show will feature seven vastly different, headlining, genre-defining artists, all who live and work in South Louisiana, and have each carved out their own incredibly unique career trajectories on the strength of their indelible original songs. From maverick multi-platinum indie-folk icon Ani DiFranco to Zydeco Kingpin Keith Frank, these great artists share one thing in common: their ability to draw and touch audiences with the power of their original material.
Ani DiFranco performs at Warehouse 535 in Lafayette on Thursday, May 24. Songs Over Style is a showcase presented by CC Adcock and features Keith Frank, Jelly Toast, Tommy McClain and Princess Shaw. Tickets for the all-ages event are available here for $25.
Visit https://www.solosongwriters.com/events/ for programming and ticket details.
