Tori Amos Pictures
Tori Amos Biography
Tori Amos was at the forefront of a number of female singer-songwriters in the early 1990s and is noteworthy as one of the few modern pop music stars to use a Bösendorfer piano as her primary instrument. She is known for lyrically opaque but emotionally intense songs that tackle a wide range of subjects, including sexuality, religion, patriarchy and personal tragedy. Some of her charting singles include Crucify, Silent All These Years, Caught a Lite Sneeze, Me and a Gun, Jackie's Strength, God, Cornflake Girl, A Sorta Fairytale, Professional Widow and Spark.
Amos has experienced limited chart success in the United States and the United Kingdom, but has also enjoyed a large cult following, selling around 12 million albums worldwide during her lengthy solo career.
Early years
Tori Amos was born to Rev. Dr. Edison and Mary Ellen Amos at the Old Catawba Hospital in Newton, North Carolina, during a trip from their home in Georgetown (Washington, D.C.) to North Carolina. When Amos was 2½, her family moved to Baltimore, Maryland where Amos began to play the piano and attend her father's church every week. She had begun composing instrumental pieces on piano when she was five years, and at the age of nine she started to add lyrics to her pieces. She won a full scholarship to the Peabody Conservatory of Music in 1968 and was the youngest person ever to attend the school at five. When she was 11, her scholarship was discontinued and she was asked to leave.
Until his death in 1969, Tori Amos spent much of her childhood (particularly her summers) with her maternal grandfather, who was part Eastern Cherokee with some European ancestry.