“I'm a musician first, a food-lover second, a dirty mouth with feet, and a girl last time I checked.”

Tori Amos is a female singer-songwriter best known for her confessional music which inspired a cult following in the early 1990s. Most fans agree that her best music came out of intense piano sessions where she will passionately sing and talk about her own personal tragedies, sexuality, and religious views. She is a favorite among young feminists and boys who crave strong, yet child-like female role models. She is known for making very eccentric comments during interviews; perhaps because she is sometimes uncomfortable answering questions in a straight manner. Tori likes to make things lively!

Myra Ellen: The Early Years

Born Myra Ellen Amos, the daughter of Reverend Edison Amos and Mary Ellen Amos, Tori grew up a piano prodigy. From age 2 she learned to play piano by ear and, by age 5, she could play anything on the piano after only hearing it once. She often played the piano at her father's church in Baltimore, Maryland, but she disliked sticking to just sheet music and would rather play more popular, secular music. Later she sought refuge with her matneral grandfather who was part Eastern Cherokee. That is when she became interested in other forms of belief and expression. She was the youngest person ever to be accepted into the Peabody Conservatory of Music after she won a scholarship, but was kicked out at age 11 because she often caused trouble there. "I'd be invited to parties simply because I played the piano. I quickly realized that I had some kind of calling. But, just as quickly, I realized that what was most important to me was following my own path -- and not the one that was laid down by others," Tori has said of her formative years as a young pianst.

At age 13 she began studying at Montgomery College and started playing at piano bars (chaperoned by her father, of course). Soon she gained local attention when she won a Teen Talent contest. In 1980, at the age of 17, she released her first single, "Baltimore"/"Walking With You", on the MEA label (her initials) and recieved a citation from the Mayor of Baltimore for the song; a song that she co-wrote with her brother Mike for a competition involving the Baltimore Orioles. During her years at Richard Montgomery High School, she was elected Homecoming Queen, Most Likely to Succeed (female), Most Talented (female), and Best All-Around (female).

_{Early Tori practicing at home}

Tori Moves Out

In 1984, at the age of 21, she moved to Hollywood. Tori played solo in clubs to earn money, did a few television commercials (for Kellogg cereals, among others, having beat out Sarah Jessica Parker for a spot in a Corn Flakes commercial). After playing a bar one night, she gave a ride home to a patron, who sexually assaulted her in the back of her car — an experience that would feed into her emotionally-charged song "Me and a Gun". The incident caused her to declare that "the girl and her piano are dead" but it was the piano that brought her back to life again.

The "Y Kan't Tori Read" Era

In 1985, Amos formed a music group, Y Kant Tori Read. Besides Tori herself, the group was comprised of Steve Caton, Matt Sorum (later of The Cult and Guns N' Roses), and Brad Cobb. A year later, Atlantic Records gave Amos a 6 record contract. In 1988, her debut album "Y Kant Tori Read" was released and became a dismal failure.

_{Y Kant Tori Read circa 1986}

Atlantic Records told Amos that she had to produce another record by March 1990, but when she presented them her initial recordings, they were rejected on the grounds that the "girl and a piano thing" was not going to sell. Extensively edited and expanded with the help of Steve Caton, Eric Rosse (who was her boyfriend at the time), Will MacGregor, Carlo Nuccio, and Dan Nebenzal, the Atlantic executives changed their minds upon hearing the edited version. Soon Tori was relocated to England to launch her new album: Little Earthquakes.

"Little Earthquakes" Move the World

_{The video for Tori's song "Crucify"}

Atlantic's European counterpart, East West, worked hard to promote the record. It was trailed by a promotional single featuring "Me and a Gun", which received considerable critical attention. When the album was released in the UK, it went straight to #14. A month later, it was released in the USA to breakthrough critical success. The accompanying singles were "Me and a Gun", "Silent All These Years", "China", "Winter" and "Crucify". During this time, Tori recorded the song "Happy Workers" for the Toys movie soundtrack. A remix of the song is also included on the soundtrack.

_{Video for the song "China"}

During these early tours Amos befriended author Neil Gaiman who became a fan. It is often said that the character Delirium from Gaiman's The Sandman series is based on her. Gaiman has stated that "they steal shamelessly from each other" but the character was actually created before the two ever met.  Says Neil of how he first came to know Tori, "Occasionally there are pleasant surprises. At the San Diego comic convention in '91, I was given a tape and told I was mentioned in one of the songs. There was just a slip of paper with this name I'd never heard, Tori Amos, and an address. When I finally got around listening to it three weeks later, I was gobsmacked.  It was stunning and terrific and wonderful. I immediately sat down and wrote her a fan letter."  Tori first mentioned Neil in her song Tear in Your Hand; "If you need me/ me and neil'll be hangin' out with the dream king..."

Under the Pink & the Brink of Success

After touring for several months, Tori traveled to New Mexico to record her next album, Under the Pink. Despite a conflict between Tori and Atlantic Records who wanted the album to be changed significantly before its release (she told them that it was not going to happen, and that if they brought it up again she would burn the masters) it debuted at #1 in the UK and #12 in the US charts on its release in January 1994. It disappointed some critics, however, who considered it a step sideways rather than forwards from Little Earthquakes (but was voted among the greatest albums of the 1990s by Rolling Stone magazine some years later). In February, she began the "Under the Pink" tour. Four tracks were released as singles: "God", "Cornflake Girl" (a #4 single in the UK), "Pretty Good Year" and "Past the Mission", which featured the vocal contribution of Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. A limited edition release of the album commemorating the Australian tour included a second disc entitled "More Pink", a collection of B-Sides.

Also at this time, Tori contributed the song "Butterfly" to the soundtrack for the 1994 movie Higher Learning as well as a cover of the R.E.M song "Losing My Religion". In June 1994, Amos co-founded RAINN, a toll-free help line in the US which connects callers with their local rape crisis center. In 1995, Tori performed a duet with Robert Plant (one of her favorite singers while she was growing up) "Down by the Seaside" which can be found on the Led Zeppelin tribute album Encomium.

Offering Boys to the Volcano Goddess, Pele...  

Tori released her third solo album, Boys for Pele, recorded in an Irish church, in County Wicklow, Ireland. This album was much longer than her previous ones and critics gave it mixed reviews. The erratic lyrical content of its songs and the instrumentation, including church bells, bagpipes, and a gospel choir, kept it away from the mainstream scene. The single "Caught a Lite Sneeze" was a hit in the UK, and the Armand Van Helden remix of "Professional Widow" became a massive club hit, so much so that that version of the song was included in her later anthology "Tales of a Librarian". Boys for Pele would prove to be Tori's most successful transatlantic chart release, reaching UK #2 and US #2 upon its release in January 1996. As with her first four solo albums, it has been certified platinum for sales of more than a million US copies. The movie Twister released in 1996 included a remix of one of Amos' songs, "Talula" also found on the Boys for Pele album.

_{Video for the remix version of "Professional Widow"}

Amos performed a highly publicized television concert called "The Concert for RAINN" in late 1996. This coincided with "National RAINN Day", and during the concert all cable and network television stations aired Amos' public service announcement about the organization. During this concert Amos performed her song "Muhammed my friend" with her friend Maynard James Keenan of the band Tool. During this year she also co-wrote/performed a song called "It Might Hurt a Little Bit" with singer Michael Stipe of the band R.E.M.; intended for the soundtrack to the film Don Juan DeMarco, it was not used and has never been released.

In Boys for Pele, Tori speaks about her experiences with hallucinogenic drugs and dealings with alternative religions. She claims that she had "tea with the devil" during one of these experiences and this led her to write the track Father Lucifer. In her previous album, Under the Pink, Tori addressed the hatred and violence between women, in Boys for Pele, Tori turned the tables and addressed the issues of hatred between men and women.

Welcome to The Choirgirl Hotel

_{Tori's video for the single "Spark"}

Released in May 1998, The Choirgirl Hotel was an album that would mark a period of musical experimentation for Tori. Choirgirl Hotel featured arrangements which expanded considerably on her core piano sound, including elements of dance music, electronica, and jazz. Again reviews were mixed but mostly positive (voted among the best albums of the year by Q magazine), and the album was generally feted by Amos fans. Some of the songs on this album (e.g. Playboy Mommy and Spark) dealt with a miscarriage. The lead single "Spark" became a substantial hit in the spring of 1998, and was followed by "Jackie's Strength" and "Raspberry Swirl". "Jackie's Strength" was subsequently remixed and hit number one on the dance charts. The album itself followed the commercially successful trend of its predecessors by reaching UK #6 and US #5 upon its release and selling more than a million copies in the US alone.

And then To Venus and Back...

_{The video for "Bliss"}

Continuing the trend she started with Choirgirl Hotel, Tori decided to document her first band tour from 1998. She decided to write a small amount of new material to be included as a bonus disc on some releases; ultimately, however, she produced a double album's worth of material which was released in September 1999 under the title To Venus and Back. The album included a live disc (subtitled Live: Still Orbiting) as well as a disc of new studio material (subtitled Venus Orbiting). This was sparser both in production and arrangement than From the Choirgirl Hotel, but like that album featured overt dance music and electronica influences and a relatively subdued piano sound.

One of the topics covered on the album concerned a series of unsolved female homicides in Ciudad Juárez on the U.S.-Mexico border. The closing track, "1000 Oceans", was much closer in spirit to her early songs and, along with the more experimental "Bliss", "Glory of the '80s", and "Concertina", became a radio and chart hit. The album itself, on account of increased price due to its double-disc format, reached UK #22 and US #12, making it transatlantically the worst-charting original album of her career.

_{The video to the moving song "1000 Oceans"}

Strange Little Girls

_{Video for "Strange Little Girl" the only single that wasn't a cover}

After suffering three miscarriages, Tori took a break from touring and writing to finally give birth to her daughter in 2000. In 2001, she got back in the studio to produce a cover album called Strange Little Girls. Each song covered on the album featured a polished fashion picture of Tori as one of the women portrayed in the songs. It was a unique little concept album that covered versions of songs written solely by men about women. This time, the reviews were quite uniform: most critics saw the album as a mixed bag, praising the unlikely reworkings of Eminem's "97' Bonnie and Clyde" and Slayer's "Raining Blood", but panning the versions of John Lennon's cryptic "Happiness is a Warm Gun" and of Neil Young's "Heart of Gold".

Going on Scarlet's Walk

Described as a "sonic novel", Tori's next album album proved to be a landmark for a variety of reasons. Stylistically, Amos put drums and bass guitar at the forefront, using her piano playing as an accent rather than a highlight. Thematically, the album explored Amos' alter ego Scarlet and her cross-American trip post-September 11, 2001. Through the songs, Amos explores the history of America, the American people, Native American history, pornography, masochism, homophobia and misogyny. The first single, "A Sorta Fairytale", was a top 10 hit in the US. It was also released as a single in the UK with a B-side entitled "Operation Peter Pan". The video for "A Sorta Fairytale" has Adrien Brody as Tori's co-star and is not to be missed.
 

_{The surreal video for "A Sorta Fairytale"}

The second single, "Taxi Ride", was an homage to the late make-up artist Kevyn Aucoin, a friend of Amos. A contest was held online to create a music video for the song, and it reached the top 40 in the US. The third single, "Strange", was remixed with a country and western feel and almost became a radio staple. Neither of the latter two singles were released commercially.

In an attempt to prevent Internet trading of the album, Amos, in conjunction with her husband and crew, invented a special kind of glue to bind closed portable CD players containing the album. These were then distributed to the press on the understanding that they would be returned within forty-eight hours. If an attempt was made to open the player, both it and the disc inside would shatter. The success of this attempt was so great that the record industry began to follow suit. As an additional incentive to buy the album rather than download its contents illicitly, the CD also served as a key to access "Scarlet's Web", a web site which featured several songs ("Tombigbee", "Seaside", "Mountain") as well as various photographs and journal entries that were not available elsewhere. Tori was nominated for a Grammy for the packaging of the limited edition version of the album. It included a bonus DVD as well as collectible items such as charms, stickers, a map, and mock Polaroid postcards. Once again, the album was a commercial success for Amos, reaching UK #26 and US #7 and becoming her biggest-selling album for five years.

Following a Librarian down to Sunny Florida

This Girl Sleeps with Butterflies...

In the spring of 2005, Tori released The Beekeeper. This album deals with topics like death, adultery and romantic conflict, and makes brief reference to ancient Gnostic mysticism. It was leaked to the Internet over a month before its release. Early reviews described it as her most lyrically accessible, and reminiscent of her first album. The music is perhaps Amos' most melodic, and sees a move towards a more groove-based sound, evidenced by the appearance of the London Community Gospel Choir on four songs and Amos' whirring B-3 Hammond organ which Amos says was a gift from her husband. 

In the song "The Power of Orange Knickers" Tori features backup vocals by Irish singer Damien Rice.  Damien's deep throbbing hum of a voice juxaposed with Tori's is a relaxing romantic blend not to be missed.

"Sleeps with Butterflies" was the first single released from the album, with "Sweet the Sting" following in the summer and "Cars and Guitars" in November. None were released commercially, but instead were radio singles. The album itself reached UK #24 and US #5, making Amos one of an elite group of women to have secured five or more US Top 10 album debuts. Despite this feat, however, "The Beekeeper" remains Tori's weakest selling album to date (233,000 copies, even less than the 1992 and 1996 EP's "Crucify" and "Hey Jupiter".) It is, however, her highest charting album in Germany (#8). Amos' general disconcern with the commercial side of the music industry was showcased when on the "Original Sinsuality" tour she did not bother performing the first single from the album in many cities. It is usually expected by record companies of a modern musician that they perform their singles or hits regularly. The accompanying tour, dubbed the 'Original Sinsuality Tour,' began April 1, 2005 and was Amos' first solo tour since 2001, bringing out piano and organ. The tour also encompassed Australia, Amos' first trip there to perform since 1994. The tour received mixed reviews, but continued into the late summer of 2005 through Europe, including appearances in June 2005 at the Glastonbury Festival and Patti Smith's Meltdown festival in London. Several American tour dates following the tour overseas. The tour finished in the States as the 'Summer of Sin', which received much better reviews than the U.S. Spring Leg. A major feature of the tour was that fans could nominate cover songs on Amos' website which she would then choose from to play in a special section of the tour. One of the songs chosen was the Kylie Minogue hit "Can't Get You Out of My Head", which Amos dedicated to her the day after Minogue's breast cancer was announced to the public. Other songs performed by Amos include The Doors' "People are Strange", Joni Mitchell's "The Circle Game", Bjork's "Hyperballad", Led Zeppelin's "When the Levee Breaks", Kate Bush's "And Dream of Sheep" and Crowded House's "Don't Dream It's Over" - dedicating it to drummer Paul Hester who had passed away a week before.

In conjunction with the album, Amos released an autobiography entitled Piece by Piece; co-authored by rock music journalist Ann Powers, it delves deeply into Amos’ obsession with mythology and religion. It explores her songwriting process while telling the story of her progression into fame.

(some source material taken from the

Tori Amos page at Wikipedia)

All about Tori

Full Name: Myra Ellen Amos

Nicknames: Ears with Feet, Tess Makes Good, Ellen

Born: August 22, 1963

Place of Birth: Newton, North Carolina USA

Height: 5' 2"

Husband: Mark Hawley (her sound engineer)

Daughter: Natashya "Tash" Lórien Hawley (born on September 5, 2000)

_{A painting of Tori from a recent edition of the RAINN calendar}

More Tori Trivia

• She started calling herself Tori after a friend of a friend told her that she seemed more like a Tori than an Ellen
• Tori helped bring publicity to the organization RAINN; the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network -- the nation's largest anti-sexual assault organization.
• At other times Tori has claimed that she named herself after a type of tree; the Torrey Pine which is the rarest type of pine in the USA
• Other people have claimed that she was called Tori for "no-TORI-ously" wearing leather pants to teach Sunday School in her father's church
• Even though she is well known for being a red head, Tori's natural hair color is dark brown
• Tori's first band's name -- Y Kan't Tori Read -- was a reference to Amos's facility with playing by ear at Peabody and her difficulty with playing from sheet music.

_{Tori playing in her father's church}

_{Tori in the Kellogg's commercial}

Discography

1988 Y Kant Tori Read (Atlantic)
1992 Little Earthquakes (Atlantic)
1994 Under the Pink (Wea)
1996 Boys for Pele (Atlantic)
1998 From the Choirgirl Hotel (Atlantic)
1999 To Venus and Back (Atlantic)
2001 Strange Little Girls (Atlantic)
2002 Scarlet's Walk (Sony)
2003 Tales of a Librarian: A Tori Amos Collection (Atlantic)
2005 The Beekeeper (Epic)

Singles and EPs
1991 Me And A Gun [EP] (Atlantic)
1992 Silent All These Years (Atlantic)
1992 Winter (EastWest)
1992 Me & A Gun (East West)
1992 Crucify (Atlantic)
1992 Crucify [EP] (Atlantic)
1993 God (Atlantic)
1994 Past the Mission (Atlantic)
1994 China [EP] (Atlantic)
1994 Cornflake Girl (Warner)
1994 Pretty Good Year (East West)
1996 Caught a Lite Sneeze / That's What I Like... (Atlantic)
1996 Hey Jupiter EP (Atlantic)
1996 Professional Widow (Atlantic)
1996 In the Springtime of His Voodoo [EP] (Atlantic)
1996 Talula (Atlantic)
1997 Silent All These Years (East)
1998 Spark/Purple People/Bachelorette Atlantic
1998 Raspberry Swirl Wea
1998 Jackie's Strength Atlantic
1998 Cruel Atlantic
1999 Bliss Atlantic
1999 1000 Oceans Atlantic
1999 Glory to the 80's Wea
2000 Concertina Atlantic
2001 Strange Little Girl WEA
2002 Sorta Fairytale Sony
2003 Don't Make Me Come to Vegas Sony

Tori Amos Interviews
1997 In Conversation Baktabak
1998 Star Profiles Mastertone
1998 Interview Import
1999 An Interview With Tori Amos Sonotec
2000 Maximum Tori Chrome Dreams
2000 Official Interview CD Megaworld
2003 Interview CD and Book United Multi

_{Tori making candy apples!}

Videography

1992 Little Earthquakes
1998 Live from New York

1998 Complete Collection:91-98
2003 A Sorta Fairytale
2004 Welcome to Sunny Florida



Tori Amos Appearances
BT Ima (1995) Vocals, Performer
BT & Tori Amos Blue Skies [US #1] (1996) Performer
BT & Tori Amos Blue Skies [US #2] (1996) Performer, Musician
BT R&R (2001) Vocals
BT 10 Years in the Life (2002) Vocals
Family Fantastic ...Nice! (2000) Vocals
Ferron Phantom Center (1990) Vocals (bckgr)
Groove Parliament Gridlock Groove (1997) Performer
Tom Jones Lead and How to Swing with It (1994) Vocals, Vocals (bckgr)
Tom Jones I Wanna Get Back with You (1995) Vocals (bckgr)
Pet Pet (1996) Executive Producer
Stan Ridgway Mosquitos (1989) Vocals (bckgr)
Stan Ridgway Best of Stan Ridgway: Songs That... (1992) Vocals (bckgr)
Al Stewart Last Days of the Century (1988) Vocals (bckgr)
Robert Tepper Modern Madness (1988) Vocals (bckgr)
Paul Van Dyk Vorsprung Dyk Technik (1998) Vocals

Tori Amos Links

OFFICIAL
Tori Amos
Tori Amos Bootleg Boutique
Everything Tori
The Tori Store
A Dent in the Tori Amos Net Universe
Little Blue World fanzine
RAINN

FANSITES
Here in My Head
Toriphoria
On My Toe. Net
Where are the Velvets?
Tori Amos weblog
Toriland
The Amazing Echo Plex Shrine
Tori Speak at MSN
6-58
Purplesque