Artist Of The Week- 3-18-13- Tori Amos

[LuthierJustin]

Tori Amos was born Myra Ellen Amos to Rev. Edison Amos and his wife Mary on August 22, 1963. At 2 and a half her parents took her to see a musical, wen she came home she started picking out the songs on the family piano. Her parents realized they had a gifted child. at the age of 5 she was accepted at the Peabody conservatory, the youngest student ever admitted there at the time. There she studied classical piano, but as Myra grew up she got more and more into Rock & Roll music (Led-Zeppelin, The Beatles, The Doors...) and she wanted to play their music, that was very frowned upon at the Peabody, they wanted her to play classical and only classical. She would tell the teachers "John Lennon is the Bach of our day, don't you see that?". She ended up losing her scholarship.

By that time her father had gotten her jobs playing in bars and gay night clubs in Baltimore, where they now lived. When Myra was a senior in high school Baltimore had a song writing competition, she and he brother decided they would write a song and enter the competition, Myra had some knowledge of producing songs with her piano, a drum machine and synthesized bass lines, as she had ben doing it of several years. The song they eventually entered was called Baltimore and was released on a 7" with the B-Side Walking With You, another song she wrote. She continued to work lounges, bars and clubs. Her friend told her "you don't seem ilk a Myra, you seem like a Tori" and the name stuck.

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At 21 she moved out to LA to get a record deal. Eventually putting together a band to fit the 80's record company formula, Y Kant Tori Read, with her guitar player until 2000 Steve Caton, and future Guns and Roses drummer Matt Sorum, They were signed by Atlantic and put out one record. Tori has said "it was third rate Pat Benatar" I actually like the record a few of the songs are really good. Robin Zander from Cheap Trick was brought in to sing back on the album.



After the failure of YKTR she decided she was not going to let anyone tell her how to make music anymore. she started writing Little Earthquakes in a small apartment she shared with then boyfriend Eric Rosse, they took the songs she had written to record companies who told her "The girl and her piano thing is over, take the pianos off and replace them with guitars". She refused and it got released as she wanted it to. it found an audience and people loved it.



Her Second Album Under The Pink was released in 1994, it pretty much followed the Little Earthquakes formula. the album featured Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails singing with Tori on the song Past The Mission, and a song about her part time boyfriend Anthony Kedis, Cloud On My Tongue.



Tori's third album Boys For Pele, possibly her least accessible album, she started bringing in other sounds, the Harpsichord makes its way on to many tracks, including Professional Widow and Talula. With bass by The Meters bass player George Porter Jr. and drums by Manu Katché the rhythm section on the album is amazing.



By 1998 Tori had married her engineer Mark Hawley, they had lost a couple pregnancies. Her next album, From The Choirgirl Hotel featured many songs about the loss of her pregnancies such as Spark, Iieee, and Playboy Mommy. She also ventured away from the piano for the first time and started using more electronic keyboards and other electronic sounds. Playboy Mommy also features Pedal Steel by the great Al Perkins. This album also is the beginning of her longtime collaboration with Matt Chamberlain on Drums and als features Jon Evans and George Porter Jr. on bass.



Tori's next album, 1999's To Venus and Back was also very electronic and dance music centered. It was a double album, the first disc was all new studio material and the second disc was live recordings



In 2000 She released a concept album, her covering songs written by men from the female prospective. she chose interesting songs to cover including Slayers Reigning Blood, Neil Youngs Heart Of Gold and Emenems '97 Bonny and Clyde. By this time she and Steve Caton had a falling out, Adrian Belew came in to play guitar on the record.



In 2002 she released my favorite album of all time Scarlet's Walk. its a concept album about traveling across america in post 9/11 world, She goes back to her roots on the album, basic pianos a few keyboards, drums, bass, guitar. The album is beautiful, it was the first Tori Amos album I ever bought and I listened to nothing but this album 3 or 4 times a day for 3 months after I got it, its powerful.



2005 brought The Beekeeper, an album she wrote when she thought she was going to lose her mother and finding herself the mother roll in her daughters life. There are some touching moments on the record like the title track and Ribbons Undone, nd some goofy moments when Tori lets loose and humorous like Hoochie Woman.



In 2007 she released yet another concept album, American Doll Posse. She sang the songs as different characters.


in 2009 Abnormally Attracted To Sin was released, I hink its an underrated album, there are some good songs on it.



2011 brought a new direction for Tori, she had been in talks with a German classical record company about doing a 21st century classical song cycle album, Night of Hunters was released, it was variations on classical songs with orchestration and piano.



in 2012 she released an album or rerecorded and reworked songs from her 20 year career, Gold Dust


Tori is changing direction again, next year she has an album coming out and its not a classical album, i cannot wait to see where she goes next.

[dime in the gutter]

nice job, lj.

robin zander....that's cool.

[dogstar]

Nice write up LJ.

I bought Little Earthquakes and Under the Pink but then lost interest. I saw her when she toured Little Earthquakes (in 1992) and she was great. Next time I came across her was when this came , which was an absolute monster in the UK clubs; I can remember Jon Acquaviva rocking the Que Club in Birmingham with two copies of this for about 20 minutes.



I also think she is the main reason I found Exile in Guyville which is definitely a good thing.

[Gang Green]

Thanks for the post. I've always been interested in Tori Amos, but never got around to listening to her. Now I can play catch - up.