In response, former Florida Senator John Grant—an avid anti-LGBTQ+ advocate who now has a massive Ron DeSantis fetish—decided to cut $104,000 from the station’s annual state funding. An emergency fundraiser staged by WMNF raised $120,000 within a day and a half, but this early brush with Floridian fascism is all the reason for the 62-year-old folk singer to remain active.
Her new album Workin’ on a World has a title track in which she expresses how her only takeaway from living in such a rotten world is that she’s working to make it better for future generations, as her ancestors did for her. DeMent is definitely on the right side of history, and her buddy John Prine—who she toured with in the aughts—will surely be there in spirit when she performs in Largo.
This article appears in Apr 13-19, 2023.