Tori Amos Biography

From LoveToKnow Music

Any Tori Amos biography usually starts with the name she was born with, which is Myra Ellen Amos. She started her music career at a very early age. Throughout the years, she has developed a style that is easy to pick out from other artists, combining lingering Zen-like piano melodies and sharp, but literal lyrics. She is often compared to Kate Bush and Joni Mitchell.

The Tori Amos Biography: the Early Years

Tori Amos was born on August 22, 1963 and at the age of two began learning the piano. Two years later, she sang and played piano for the choir at her father's church. By the age of ten, Tori Amos was composing instrumentals and writing lyrics.

When she was five, Amos received a scholarship to the Peabody Conservatory of Music and was the youngest person ever to be enrolled. She stayed until she was 11, which was when her scholarship ended. During her time at Peabody, she fell in love with Rock music (particularly Led Zepplin). She claims that is one of the reasons she was asked to leave the music institute. The other reason was because she hated reading sheet music.

Tori went on to Montgomery College and started playing in piano bars. Her father would accompany her to the bars and would record her performances on tape. Then, he would send them off to record companies.

Y Kant Tori Read

Named after her experiences at the Peabody Conservatory, Y Kant Tori Read, was Tori Amos' attempt at forming a band in 1985. She moved to Los Angeles and received a few acting jobs and prior to forming the band, she was raped by a regular customer at a piano bar she often played at. This event was the basis for the song Me and a Gun.

In 1987, Atlantic Records signed Amos for a six-record contract. Y Kant Tori Read released a self-titled album in 1988, but it did horribly. Amos quickly became depressed and embarrassed over the album fiasco.

Going Solo

Tori Amos still needed to fulfill her Atlantic contract so she put together an album of pure piano music. The record company rejected it at first, but later decided to released Little Earthquakes when Amos went back and revised most of the songs.

She soon gathered a following, with each album getting more critical acclaim than that one before it. In 2001, she switched recorded companies and landed with Epic and quickly released Scarlet's Walk, her eight studio album.

Struggles

The later years of the 1990's and the early years of the new millennium proved tough for Tori Amos, but in the end she came out stronger than before with new material, ready for new endeavors.

In 1996, Tori Amos miscarried three days before Christmas, which sent her into a long depression. Two years later, she married sound engineer Mark Hawley. In 2000, she had a daughter, Natashya Lorien Hawley and the next year moved over to Epic records.

The Present

She recently announced in May 2008 that she was going to go independent rather than rely on major record labels to continue her career. In 2009, she plans on releasing something that was a "project of music and visuals".

Discography

The Tori Amos biography discography:

1992: Little Earthquakes
1994: Under the Pink
1996: Boys for Pele
1998: from the choirgirl hotel
1999: To Venus and Back, 2-Disc set
2001: Strange Little Girls
2002: Scarlet's Walk
2003: Tales of a Librarian
2004: Welcome to Sunny Florida
2005: The Beekeeper
2005: The Original Bootlegs
2006: Fade to Red
2006: A Piano: The Collection
2007: American Doll Posse

Interesting Facts

Tori Amos Biography: Interesting Trivia.

Tori Amos' first single was a song called "Baltimore", which was about the Baltimore Orioles. She wrote it with her brother for a contest. The 7" single was made just for family and friends in 1980. On the B-Side was an instrumental, "Walking With You".

She wrote a song called "Distant Storm", which ran over the credits in the movie, China O'Brien. Tori didn't get credit for it, a band named Tess Makes Good did.