A tale of two cities … starring Ani DiFranco.

City No. 1: Buffalo, N.Y., DiFranco's hometown, where she was instrumental in transforming a 19th-century church slated for demolition into Babeville — a state-of-the-art performance space and the new headquarters of her indie label Righteous Babe Records.

City No. 2: New Orleans, where DiFranco now resides, a city still deep in recovery from the ravages of Hurricane Katrina. Though it was “the music,” she says, that prompted her to move to the Big Easy, DiFranco feels the pain and the loss and the desperation of those who are now her neighbors.

Neither refurbishing a downtrodden neighborhood in Buffalo nor living in one of the storied citadels of the South is out of character, if you know Ani DiFranco.

“I gauge places on how much soul you can feel in the air,” said the well-traveled DiFranco, speaking from a tour stop in Baltimore. “That's why I'm so in love with old buildings. They have soul. They have history. People's lives have been led in them, and you feel it. You feel connected to the past and therefore aware of the future.”

One of those “old buildings,” a Gothic, steepled edifice of Medinas and stone with a Vermont slate roof, became the focal point of DiFranco's and manager Scot Fisher's crusade in downtown Buffalo, where, she said, “These corrupt, visionless politicians and developers are devastating our city for our children, for future generations.”

Saving the targeted church sanctuary and parish house from the wrecking ball required “years of wrestling with the city” and generating both public and private financing toward restoration.

“It ended up being a sprawling project that involved many, many people, levels of funding and financing, grants and levels of government, and wringing our hands ... ‘songing and dancing' at City Hall,” DiFranco recalled. “Eight years later, it's actually coming to fruition, and it's becoming a little arts center in downtown Buffalo.”

DiFranco herself inaugurated the new performance space — christened Asbury Hall — last September, with two live shows, backed by her latest touring band: longtime bassist Todd Sickafoose, percussionist Mike Dillon and drummer Allison Miller. This spring, she released a DVD of those shows, featuring 18 songs culled from the breadth of DiFranco's songwriting canon.

“There was a real warm vibe,” she says of the experience.

Of note: “(The first show) was the very first night that my band played, which is crazy; also, I had been off-tour, having a baby, so I can't believe that we documented our first show. It's probably a little rough around the edges, but the spirit is there.”

The venue, which seats nearly 1,200 people, “started out very ‘churchy,' very reverberent. But one of the places where we spared no expense was in the (line-array) sound system ... it's cutting-edge PA technology.”

They've only just begun at Babeville, too. Indie promoters in Buffalo are starting to book shows in the Asbury Hall space, and a basement bar/nightclub is in the works.

The future remains dimmer down in New Orleans.

“There are many areas of town that are still utterly devastated,” said DiFranco. “They're much greener now that nature has taken over, but the human community is barely recovered at all.

“It's shocking to see some areas of town with block after block of totally blighted, devastated neighborhoods, and then you'll see one house where people are homesteading, like a war zone. They must feel like they're the last people on earth in some areas.”

DiFranco resides uptown, in a part of the city virtually unaffected by the hurricane's aftermath. But “all you have to do is get on your bicycle and ride about six blocks ... you see one-third people who have fixed up their houses and moved back, one-third people who are still recovering, and one-third people who are still gone.”

That said, “It is heartening and inspiring to see how many people have come to help,” said DiFranco, ever the activist. “Everybody but the government.”

But the government, one way or the other, soon will be changing, and DiFranco, at whose shows a political atmosphere is always present, is optimistic.

“These days,” she said, “there's hope and excitement in the air. I can define that in two words: voter participation. ... That's what we need in order to have a democracy.”

The optimism is finding its way into DiFranco's set lists, too.

“I've been speaking to that,” she said. “I look through my bags of songs and I look at the really sort of bleak, angry, banging-your-head-against-the-wall type of material, and I don't want to play that right now.”

Pictured here: Buffalo, N.Y.-born Ani DiFranco, lover of nature and music, is as comfortable on a porch swing as she is on a concert stage. Photo by Danny Clinch.

To find out more about David Coddon and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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