Tori Amos biography

Synopsis

Little Earthquakes (1992) was the first Tori Amos album that featured her signature style, and the album went gold in both the U.S. and U.K. Her next few albums established Amos as "the 90s' most essential musician besides Kurt Cobain" and "the wizard queen of alternative rock." Frustrated with corporate record labels, Amos converted her barn into a recording studio and continues to make music.

Early Life

Musician. Born August 22, 1963, as Myra Ellen Amos in Newton, North Carolina. Before she turned 3 years old, Amos fell in love with the family's piano, even though she couldn't quite yet reach the keys. "I would grab a phone book and somehow crawl up and sit," she recalled later. "And my mom said she would find me there, just happy as a clam, playing that piano." As a young girl growing up in the Washington, D.C., suburb of Rockville, Maryland, Amos was heavily influenced by her family's musical tastes, from her mom's beloved Broadway show tunes to the Beatles and Rolling Stones albums her brother brought home from the record shop. At the age of 5, her performance of the musical score Oliver! helped make her the youngest person ever admitted to the prestigious Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore.

In search of her first professional gig, a 13-year-old Amos enlisted the help of her minister father, who went calling on bars dressed in his clerical collar and with a Bible in hand. The unlikely pair landed Amos an unlikely first gig at Mr. Henry's, a D.C. gay bar. Amos continued to perform locally throughout her teenage years.

Breakthrough Album

At the age of 21, Amos headed west to Los Angeles to pursue her dreams of a recording career under her new, adopted name: Tori. She landed a record deal with Atlantic in 1987. At the label's urging, Amos marketed herself as an 80s rocker girl, replete with permed hair and a back-up band called Y Kant Tori Read. When her first album received very little attention, Amos fought the label to create an album that more accurately reflected her own musical style. The result, Little Earthquakes (1992), was the first Tori Amos album that would feature the artist's signature style. Her hard work paid off, and the album went gold in both the U.S. and U.K.

Helping Victims of Sexual Assault

Little Earthquakes also included the song "Me and a Gun," a deeply personal account of Amos's kidnapping and rape at knifepoint in Los Angeles years earlier. The song gave strength to countless other survivors of sexual assault, many of whom approached Amos after her shows to share their experiences. With them in mind in June 1994, Amos co-founded the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, a crisis hotline for sexual assault victims. The hotline received its 1 millionth caller in 2006, and has frequently been cited as one of the top charities in the U.S.

Amos released the albums Under the Pink in 1994 and Boys for Pele in 1996. These albums, with their dense, metaphoric lyrics, feminist themes and complex piano melodies, established Amos (in the words of various reviewers) as "the 90s' most essential musician besides Kurt Cobain" and "the wizard queen of alternative rock."

Creation of Her Own Studio

Growing increasingly frustrated with corporate record labels, Amos converted the barn of her home in Cornwall, England, into a recording studio and founded her own business, Martian Recording Studios. She transformed her classic solo-piano sound to a more varied one, and began recording with a band and experimenting with electronic production. In 1998, she released From the Choirgirl Hotel, her bestselling album to date.

In her later albums, Amos continued to experiment musically. In 2001's Strange Little Girls she covered songs like the Beatles' "Happiness Is a Warm Gun" from a female perspective. Her 2002 album Scarlet's Walk (the first released under her new label, Epic) drew on themes ranging from Native American history to pornography. For her 2007 album American Doll Posse, Amos performed songs from the perspectives of five different female personalities conceived for the album.

In 1998, Amos married Mark Hawley, an English sound engineer. She gave birth to their daughter, Natashya, in 2000. Amos and her husband divide their time between England and the U.S. She continues to write and record music, always striving to push the boundaries of what people expect of the musical artist.