Tori Amos

Born Myra Ellen Amos in Northern Carolina in 1963, Tori Amos took up classical piano at the age of 2. She was granted a scholorship to the Peabody Conservatory at the age of 5, but was kicked out at 11 for playing her own songs and improvising. After this Tori, always a big Stones and Beatles fan, turned her attention beyond classical music. She began playing her own songs in gay bars and hotel lounges at 13, and when she was 21 she changed her name to Tori and moved to LA to dedicate herself to her music completely. She formed a band called Y Kant Tori Read but their first release was a commerical disaster and the band flopped. Around this time Tori was kidnapped and sexually assaulted, and following this suffered a nervous breakdown and severe depression.

However, eventually Tori decided that enough was enough, and began to write the songs that would make up her debut album Little Earthquakes, channeling her emotional pain to give the music a harrowing and raw confessional power. Her reclaiming of her first instrument, classical piano, was inspired by a friend who heard her playing and said

Just over two years later Under the Pink (1994) hit UK #1 and US #12, producing the alternative classics 'Cornflake Girl' and 'Pretty Good Year'. Boys for Pele (1996) and From the Choirgirl Hotel (1998) also sold by the bucketload, although Amos's eccentricity began to produce more ecclectic results. Nevertheless, a remix of 'Professional Widow' topped the British singles chart in late '96, proving that the best could very well still be to come.

Amos successfully traversed the dangerous waters of a covers album project with 2001's Strange Little Girls, however after a move to Epic for Scarlet's Walk (2002) the singer looked set to be eclipsed by her followers, particularly Fiona Apple and Vanessa Carlton, who took more accessible piano-led songsmithery to new commercial heights.

Tori, this instrument is crying without you, and you're a mess without it. This is what you are. It's not about the fact that nobody thinks it's cool. Cat Conway (& Tom Edwards)