Tori Amos (born Myra Ellen Amos August 22, 1963) is an American pianist and singer, songwriter, she is married to English sound engineer Mark Hawley, with whom she has a child Natashya "Tash" Lorien Hawley born September 5, 2000
Having already begun composing instrumental pieces on piano Amos won a full scholarship to the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University the youngest person ever to have been admitted at the age of five, she was expelled at age eleven in her own words, insists on playing by ear and on the basis of her interest in popular rock music
Amos stood at the forefront of a number of female singer-songwriters in the early 1990s and was noteworthy early in her career as one of the few alternative rock artistsusing a piano as his primary instrument Honär known for his emotionally intense songs that cover a wide range of topics, including sexuality, religion and personal tragedy, some of her chart singles are "Crucify" Silent All These Years "Cornflake Girl" "Caught a little Sneeze "Professional Widow" "Spark" and "A Sorta Fairytale" her most commercially successful single in the U.S. so far
From 2005, Amos had sold 12 million albums worldwide with a history of making eccentric and at times ribald comments during concerts and interviews she has gained a reputation for being highly idiosyncratic as a social commentator and sometimes activist, some of the issues she has been the loudest include feminism, religion and sexualsmall
When Amos was 2familjen moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where she began playing piano at age five, she started writing instrumental pieces for piano while living in Rockville Maryland, she won a full scholarship to the Preparatory Division at the Peabody Conservatory of Music (still aged five), her scholarship was discontinued at age 11 and she was asked to leave Amos contends that she lost a scholarship because of her interest in rock and popular music with his dislike of reading from sheet music two years later she enrolled at Montgomery College and began playing at piano bars chaperoned by her father, who was sending tapes of songs she had written to the record labels
Amos first came to notice by a localtt win a county teen talent contest in 1977 singing a song called "; More Than Just A Friend" as a senior at Richard Montgomery High School, she has written "Baltimore" with his brother Mike Amos for a competition involving the Baltimore Orioles won the song contest and became Her first single released a 7 "single pressed locally for family and friends in 1980 with another Amos boxes sitting as a B-side" Walking With You "before this period she appeared during her middle name Ellen without permanently adopted Tori after a friend's boyfriend said it took her at age 21 Amos moved to Los Angeles to pursue his music career after several years at the piano bar circuit of the East Coast
The same year, Amos formed a band Y Kant Tori Read, whose name is a referenceto his days at Than Peabody Conservatory where she could play songs on the piano by ear, but never succeeded in addition to sight reading Amos group consisted of Steve Caton (who would later play guitar in all her subsequent albums until 1999), drummer Matt Sorum bassist Brad Cobb and for a short time keyboardist Jim Tauber A year later, Atlantic Records gave Amos six record deal with July 1988 the band's self-titled debut album was released on the album bad reviews are now out of print and Amos has expressed no interest in reissuing it after the commercial failure Amos began working with other artists (including Stan Ridgway Sandra Bernhard, and Al Stewart) as backup singers, she also recorded a song called "Distant Storm" for the movie China O'Bseries, the following text to the song for a band called Tess Makes Good It was the only song recorded by the band and its only commercial release of the movie
Despite the disappointing response to Y Kant Tori Read Amos still must meet its six record deal with Atlantic Records, which 1989 wanted a new record level in March 1990 when she presented them with their original recordings, they were rejected on the grounds that this piano-based music would not sell in the early 90s market grunge rock rap and dance music major overhaul and expanded using Steve Caton Eric Rosse Will MacGregor Carlo Nuccio, and Dan Nebenzal disc ended up full of raw emotive songs recounting her religious upbringing of sexual awakening, struggle for their identity and sin sexual assault Atlantic executives changed his mind when he heard the updated version of the plan to promote her as an heir to Joni Mitchell and Laura Nyro, or alternatively, as a female version of Elton John Expecting the traditionally more open British market warmed to Amos and create a "buzz" that you can return to the U.S. Atlantic Amos moved to Britain in early 1991 to play small clubs for the launch of the new album, released under the name Little Earthquakes
Amos went to New Mexico with a personal and professional partner Eric Rosse in 1993 to write and record in large part his second solo album The Pink Amos continued to write about events in her own life but in a way that was notequally clear that the texts on her solo debut album Musically Amos drew from the style of classical composers she studied during her childhood and the increasing focus on her solo piano rather than band instrumentation The album was received with mostly positive reviews and sold enough copies to table # 12 on the Billboard 200 A significantly higher position than the previous album's position at # 54 on the same Chart
At the end of Amos's personal and professional relationship with Eric Rosse served as an incentive for her third solo album, Boys for Pele was released in January 1996 the album was recorded in one Irish church in Delgany County Wicklow, Ireland with Amos uses the church recording setup to create an album ripe with barockinfluenseRNA borrow it a darker sound and style, she added, harpsichord clavichord harmoniumoch her keyboard repertoire, and although such anomalies as a bagpipe gospel church bells, and drum programming The album met with mixed reviews on its release with some critics praising its intensity and uniqueness while others regretted their comparative impermeability Despite album whimsical lyrical content, instrumentation, and the latter of which held it away from the mainstream audience Boys For Pele is Amos's most successful simultaneous release across the Atlantic reached # 2 on both the Billboard 200 and UK Top 40 on its release at the height of her fame
Fueled by a desire to have his own recording studio to distance itself from the record company executives Amos hadchildren at his home in Cornwall, England into a state-of-the-art recording studio Martian Engineering Studios Amos solicitation main band mates Steve Caton on guitar, Jon Evans on bass and Matt Chamberlain on drums with the Amos who would record their next two studio album and launch World Tours
From the Choir Girl Hotel and To Venus and Back released May 1998 and September 1999 respectively are very different from previous albums that they are flush with musical technology with Amos trademark acoustic piano-based audio to a large extent been replaced by a regime that includes elements of music electro dance song washes and Sonic Landscape The underlying themes of both albums deal with femininity and Amos's own marriage, abortion and Reviews From Choir Girl Hotellet was mostly good and praised Amos continued artistic originality While not her highest chart debut debut sales from Choir Girl Hotel is Amos best so far to sell 153,000 copies in its first week to Venus and back a two-disc release of original studio material and live material recorded from previous world tour was mostly positive reviews, and included the first major-label only available for sale as a digital download
Inspired by the songs she heard on the radio while caring for his newborn daughter Amos hatched the idea to produce a covers album recording were written by men about women and reversing the gender roles to show a woman's perspective that idea grew to Strange Little Girls releasedes in September 2001 Album is Amos's first concept album with artwork by Amos photographed avkvinnor character portrayed in each song Amos would later prove to be an incentive for the album was to end its contract with Atlantic, but to give them new songs, Amos knew that well since 1998 the label had not been to promote her and had turned her into a contract refuses to sell her to another label
With her Atlantic contract met after a 15-year stint Amos signed to Epic in early 2002 was released in October Amos Scarlet's Walk Another concept album described as "Sonic the novel" The album explores Amos Scarlet's alter ego and her cross-country trip after 9 / 11 Through the songs Amos explores the history of Native American people of America American history pornography masochism homophobia and misogyny, but the political nature of the album is often härdatav the classic production and songwriting style that recalls the likes of Fleetwood Mac
Not long after Amos was embedded with his new label, she received disturbing news when Polly Anthony resigned as president of Epic Records 2003 Anthony was one of the main reasons why Amos signed with the label and as a result of her departure Amos Bridge Entertainment Group formed a company focused on helping musicians in various ways during a time when the music industry is changing more problems for Amos occurred the following year when her label, Epic / Sony Music Entertainment together with BMG Entertainment as a result of industrial decline AmoNations would later hint in interviews that the creation of her next album the officers of the label after the aforementioned merger was interested "only make money" whose effects on the album that has not been disclosed
Amos released two albums with the label beekeeper (2005) and American Doll Posse (2007) Both of these albums received mixed reviews some of whom said that the albums suffered too long beekeeper influenced conceptually by the ancient art of beekeeping she considered to be a source of female inspiration and empowerment through comprehensive study Amos also wove in stories on the Gnostic Gospels and the removal of women from a position of power within the Christian church to create an album largely based on religion and politics album debuted at #5 on the Billboard 200 is a milestone for Amos to place her in an elite group of women that have secured FIVE or more U.S. Top 10 debut album American Doll Posse another concept album was shaped around a group of girls (the "posse") is used as a theme of alter-egos Amos musically and stylistically the album saw Amos return to a more confrontational nature, like its predecessor, American Doll Posse debuted at # 5 on the Billboard 200
During his employment with Epic, Amos also released a retrospective collection titled Tales of a librarian (2003) by his former label, Atlantic Records, a two-disc DVD Fade to Red (2006), which contains most of Amos videos solo music released by Warner Bros. reissue Imprint Rhino, a five-disc livex with the title A Piano: The Collection (2006) celebrated Amos 15 career solo through the remastered album tracks RemiMRÅDEN demos, alternate mixes and a variety of unreleased songs from the album recording sessions, also released by Rhino, and many official bootlegs from two World Tours The Original Bootlegs (2005) and Ben & Boots (2007)
In May 2008, Amos announced that she had negotiated an end to her contract with Epic Records and that she would act independently of the major record companies about future work in September of that year Amos released a live album and DVD Live at Montreux 1991/1992 by Eagle Rock Entertainment By December Amos signed a joint venture deal with Universal Republic Records, where Amos had artistic autonomy over sitt work
Southpaw Grammar Amos tenth studio album and her first album was released through Universal Republic varsläpptes in May 2009 to mostly positive reviews album debuted in the top 10 on the Billboard 200 making it the artist's seventh album to do it
Other concurrent projects Amos writes the music of Samuel Adamson's musical adaptation of George MacDonald story The Light Princess for the Royal National Theater and record a duet with former lead singer David Byrne in Talking Heads for his album Here Lies Love is expected to debut sometime in 2009, Amos is currently on tour in support for Graffiti and will play cities across the United States, Europe and Australia, Amos will release a currently untitled release of the SunStice / winter songs in the 3 November 2009
Released in conjunction with the beekeeper Amos co-authored an autobiography with rock music journalist Ann Powers entitled Piece by Piece (2005) The book digs deeply into Amos interest in mythology and religion, exploring her songwriting process lead to fame and her relationship with Atlantic Records
Image Comics the Comic Book Tattoo (2008) a collection of signed stories, each based on or inspired by the songs recorded by Amos Editor Rantz Hoseley worked with Amos to collect 80 different artists for the book even Pia Guerra David Mack and Leah Moore
Other publications include Tori Amos: Lyrics (2001) and an earlier biography Tori Amos: All These Years (1996) In addition, Amos and her music has been the subject ofmany official and unofficial books and academic criticism |
