Amos, Tori

Tori Amos (born Myra Ellen Amos on August 22, 1963) is an American pianist and singer-songwriter. She is married to English sound engineer Mark Hawley, and they have one daughter together, Natashya "Tash" Lórien Hawley, born on September 5, 2000. more...

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 utilize a 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. She is also known for making eccentric and, at times, ribald comments during interviews and in concerts, lending her a reputation as being oddball yet individual.

Biography

Early years

Amos was born to Rev. Dr. Edison and Mary Ellen Amos in Newton, North Carolina, during a trip from their home in Georgetown (Washington, D.C.) to North Carolina, at the Old Catawba Hospital in Newton, North Carolina. When Amos was 2½, her family moved to Baltimore, Maryland where she began to play the piano and attend her father's church every week. By the age of five years, she had begun composing instrumental pieces on piano, and at nine started to add lyrics to her pieces. She spent much of her childhood (particularly her summers) with her maternal grandfather, who was part Eastern Cherokee (an Eastern Cherokee with some European ancestry), until his death in 1969. He was a central influence on Amos' later work.

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