Tori Amos
Tori Amos is a pianist and singer/songwriter who uses her music to get across a broad range of topics from religion to sexuality to social commentary on feminism. Her strict background in religion coupled with an early love of music encouraged this path, but she also had to fight a lot against conventions in music such as the fact that not being able to read sheet music made it more difficult for her to keep her place in the school she was attending and she had to fight against the record companies’ preconceptions that the audience of the early nineties was only interested in rap and dance music, not in Tori’s haunting piano music. However, she quickly proved them wrong with her band Y Kant Tori Read and a number of albums which quickly became chart favorites.
Tori Amos was born in 1963 in Newton, North Carolina, though her family moved to Baltimore, Maryland when she was two and it was here where she began to play the piano. Unfortunately, she primarily played by ear and never learned to read sheet music which she believed contributed to her being kicked out of the Preparatory Division of the Peabody Conservatory of Music which she was granted a full scholarship to when she was five and asked to leave when she was eleven. She went to a different school and began writing and performing music when she in high school. From there, she would go on to create many albums and sell over twelve million worldwide. Her band Y Kant Tori Read (a reference to her inability to read sheet music) signed on with Atlantic Records and enjoyed a six record contract, despite the initial lukewarm response to the band (mainly due to their genre which was piano rock and alternative rock). Fifteen years later, the band disbanded and Tori began a solo career which in many ways has been more successful because she was more able to create the music she wanted without outside influences.
Although by no means a famous musician (though her albums were reaching #2 positions in charts across the world, including the UK), Tori Amos’ influence is felt more in the fact that she had to battle against ideas of what a musician should be and her music is rich with her upbringing with religion and feminism and sexuality. She is a social commentator with her music who doesn’t let social norms get in the way of the music she wants to create. This is a very important thing for musicians to do and it is often something that gets lost in the search for fame and fortune. Tori Amos prefers to let her music speak for her.
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