She may be small in stature, but Ani DiFranco’s laughter this evening rings charmingly large.

The self-proclaimed "little folksinger, " astute political and societal observer in her own right (or "left," as she probably would prefer), is offering something akin to her personal state of the union.

"I think I’m at a pretty good place right now," she says, talking from Buffalo, home to the offices of her Righteous Babe organization in Buffalo. "It seems I’ve been out here long enough doing my thing that I’ve outlived most of my stereotypes, which is nice. And I have a really supportive audience that has also sort of chilled out and matured with me, and I can count on them to keep me in work."

Work is no stranger to the ever prolific singer-songwriter-musician who saw the company (Righteous Babe) she founded grow to serve as an umbrella for her own record label, touring, management and publishing company, retail store and the Righteous Babe Foundation. The foundation’s goal is to support grassroots solutions to real-world problems.

VH1 included her in its 1999 list of the "100 Greatest Women of Rock," calling her one of the most influential musicians of the decade. Doing it her way, without mega-corporation support, she logged strong sales in the millions, earned Grammy nominations and made herself at home on the national charts.

She continues to challenge herself in exploring genres, interesting collaborations, and ways of presenting her art in solo, duo and band configurations.

Her new concert DVD, "Trust," was released Nov. 9, and a new studio album, "Knuckledown," is to be released Jan. 25.

DiFranco, 34, says the challenges of keeping it fresh for herself are different every day.

"I definitely have to strive to do that, especially the kind of inherent challenge of this job, like (she smiles), ‘Go sing that song again and make it new.’ It’s always a challenge to keep yourself interested. For me recently, they are challenges like, ‘How about make a record all by yourself, home alone?’ (She laughs). And ‘How about go to LA and make a record with a bunch of guys you don’t know?’ "

She describes "Knuckledown" as a full band record, with about a half dozen guest musicians, as opposed to the previous solo album, "Educated Guess," where she played all the instruments, recorded the tracks in her home and even engineered it herself.

"This has got a different sound than my other records." DiFranco says. "I had somebody else recording and mixing it, which was a first for me, and I was pursuing string accompaniment in the way maybe I used horns in the past."

A number of the songs are in standard tuning, which is not something in which she usually writes. "That may amount to the big difference about this album," she says.

While some of her friends joke that this is her classic rock record, DiFranco says, "That may be the perception only of a friend." "I put out some pretty rocking albums over the years and have got everything from jazz and intimate notes to rocking out on my records."

She will acknowledge that she considers "Knuckledown" one of her better albums. "As an artist it is always my new one that I consider the better one whether it’s true or not," she explains, laughing again.

She says the creative process and subject matter is constantly evolving as her perceptions and experiences change. "These songs actually were written as very much of a piece. I wrote them mostly within the space of a few months. It’s a unique situation I set up for myself where I decide to make a record and where and when I would make it, and just about with whom, and wrote to a deadline." It was recorded in Los Angeles.

Collaboration was one goal.

"I asked my friend (musician) Joe Henry to sort of co-produce (a first for her) the project and he brought a couple people, an engineer and mixer, and the drummer and keyboardist. And I brought my bass player (Todd Sickafoose, whom she praises enthusiastically) that I have been touring with in duo situations. And there were these special guests, like Andrew Bird (violin, glockenspiel, whistling) who is on Righteous Babe."

As to what she hopes people take from her CDs or live performances, she says inherently that is something very individual to each listener.

"It would just be inspiration. I’m not a ‘do as I do’ kind of person. That’s not my nature though that is one of the stereotypes (about her). Certainly a person with strong political convictions gets that hoisted upon her. I’m more a ‘figure it out for yourself how you must do something and do that, why don’t you." She encourages individual activism.

Most of her conversations these days are political in nature, the artist says. "I guess I’m seen as some sort of leftist spokesperson, which is a refreshing change from ‘speaking for womankind’ (she laughs)."

She completed the 17-city "Vote Dammit!" tour of the swing states in early October. The goal was to promote voting awareness in states where historically it mattered the most. One reviewer noted, "She expressed ideas in songs rather than sermons."

DiFranco ran a slide show during intermission of historical photographs and a timeline of America’s voting history. Planned Parenthood, Amnesty International and Turn Out Florida were among not-for-profit groups forging a coalition with the Feminist Majority at each show. They worked together to encourage active voters, register new ones and to share information about their issues.

DiFranco says she continues to be motivated and driven by the basic will to put something good back into the planet. "I want to try to make a positive change in this world, even if it’s just in the room I’m in with the people I’m in it with ," she says. "One problem with activism and, dare I say, democracy in this country is that we have such a desire for immediate gratification in our culture now. We expect to make changes easily. But I think change by its very nature is not like this, so my goal every day is similar, whatever it is I’m doing, just trying to put something good into the world."

In the kind of work she is in, says DiFranco, people all the time are trying to sum her up, to say what it is that she is all about. "None of it is true, if for the mere fact that any one human being can’t be summed up like that," she says.

"Certainly I suppose I have an inherent aversion to doing it myself (trying to sum herself up). I just can’t. From my very own unobjective perspective, I’m about something each day that is different."

She agrees that is not such a bad place to be.

When she turned 30, the musician reflected, "I used to dance, I was in art school, I have so many interests and loves and those have been pretty subordinated by the pace of my musical endeavors."

She says she has been noticing a very gratifying change in her life since then. "I do have all these things. I am re-incorporating all of these various identities into myself. I think maybe it’s a factor of maturing into my work." Now she employs all of her interests in her job.

DiFranco: "Designing records and doing art work on my records, which I make so frequently, is a way I exercise my visual side now. And my body is much freer on stage. I dance around and leap about in ways I didn’t before. All my years of dance training is kind of being put to work in other ways now.

"Also my political, my social, consciousness is factoring heavily into my work. The big voter registration that we just did was tremendously successful. A lot of people just got inspired and informed. The slide show was all about voting history in our country. Audiences learned about how hard people struggled for the right to vote and to think differently about casting that right away."

DiFranco often is asked what social and political issues are her priorities. "I don’t think we have to narrow them down. I think we have to expand them out," she says. "One of the things this 2004 election wrongness proves once again is we need to be unified and need to be working together. We need to be strategic. People have asked me my whole public career about my issues, my pet issues. I never thought that way. For me it is about truth and that is just overarching.

"We need to unite on the left under an umbrella of truth and justice because the right is nothing if not united and strategic."

DiFranco is aware that some, if not many, creative people consider this a repressive time.

The artist takes the view that the only real censorship in this country is self- censorship. "We actually have a law in place guaranteeing us the right to say what think. It’s just that simple to me. Anyone can say anything in public. If you get a little less radio airplay, then so be it. Any journalist can be an investigative reporter and have their own perspective on events, rather than regurgitating White House press releases. We individually choose not to (say what we think). We are forfeiting our power as citizens of this country at an alarming rate."

Is it because many are afraid?

DiFranco: "Yes. I don’t like to say selfish. I don’t think we understand how empowering ourselves and building community does help us, and that George Bush truly does not have any of our interests in mind unless of course you happen to be a multi-millionaire and you will have one of the big defense or power contracts. It’s a fallacy that he is protecting any of our interests."

Closer to her personal and corporate home, DiFranco says that in many ways the projects under her Righteous Babe umbrella have gone the way she had hoped.

"Yes, myself and partner Scot Fisher, we are self-realized people. We are on our path, which is not to say easy or getting any easier, for that matter. The music industry quote on quote is really changing and sort of imploding with album sales down across the board, and even everyone panicking and downscaling and huge majors gobbling each other up.

"For independents (like her label), there is the death of all the indy record stores, consumed by multi-nationals, and indy radio has become more and more consolidated into a corporate playlist scenario. And there’s the overthrow of independent promoters in all sorts of markets. This has not helped us. We are struggling, honestly, but we continue and keep optimistic. There are always ways to do the good work. If we believe they are there we can find them."

DiFranco once remarked that her success has never really mattered to her.

"It’s about performing and sharing music with people," she explained.

That’s truer that it has ever been, she says.

"I’ve recently been to Burma, of all places to go. It’s a country struggling with a violent, repressive military dictatorship. I met impoverished people faced with violence every day. Everywhere I went, to refuge camps and clinics and orphanages, the first thing that happened is children would stand up and sing with us. Somebody would pull out a guitar. There was always an old beater guitar around, and we would sing. It really made it so clear to me everyday there what music was for: when we sing to each other it changed everything. We no longer were so different. We were family."

It is a family of two on stage of late as DiFranco performs with her bassist, Todd Sickafoose.

She really enjoys the duo format.

"It has all the energy of playing music with people and all the liberty of playing music alone," DiFranco says. "I haven’t been in a duo situation in many, many years when I toured with just myself and a drummer, an acoustic guitar and a drum kit. I decided coming back to this instrumentation is my favorite for performance. Because, if you are playing with the right person, it is as intimate as being onstage alone, just to have two people naked there. But you get all of that thrill of what it is to play music with someone."

DiFranco says the folksinger in her appreciates that playing live, regardless of the configuration, is the natural state of music. "Before we had recording equipment, music was an activity and it is a social activity that is the most beautiful and natural context for music."

The little folksinger is determined to play on.