Tori Amos Biography :: essays research papers

Tori Amos, Goddess of Rock and Roll, and the piano. The girl who has been through so much, but still lives to tell about it and share all of her life experiences through her songs. Her life is almost like a song itself, with all of the trials and tribulations one can imagine.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Amos, who was born in Newton, North Carolina on August 22nd, 1963 wasn’t originally called Tori. Her given name was Myra Ellen. The change of her name came later in her career. Right from the beginning, her talents on the piano were recognized. At the young age of three, before her legs were even long enough to reach the pedals, she was climbing up to the piano bench to play a song. By the age of five, she was the youngest student to ever be accepted to the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore. She stayed at the Conservatory for several years, but by the age of eleven she was asked to leave because she didn’t want to play the music that was required of her. She once stated in an interview on the Rosie O’Donnell Show, â€Å"Those guys are dead, why do I want to play that crap! I want to be a composer...don’t we all...but I did.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  After getting kicked out of the school she began playing at piano bars. Her father always was tagging along, because she wasn’t old enough to go alone. She played at the bars, in addition to a Marriot hotel, until she graduated from high school. Sometime after that Ellen, as she was called, changed her name. One of Tori’s sisters brought her boyfriend to one of Tori’s shows one night to see her play. After the show the boyfriend told Amos that she indeed was not an Ellen. She looked like a Tori, and that is how it all began.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  After high school, she joined a band called Y Kant Tori Read. The band signed to the Atlantic record label, and worked on the release of their first album. Their CD release flopped, and the band broke up. When their CD was first released, not many people wanted it. Amazingly enough, the CD now goes for around one hundred dollars as a Tori collectors item.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  During this time, Tori was still doing little gigs here and there. One night after a show, something happened that changed her life dramatically. Tori offered a member of the audience a ride home after the show, and he raped her in the back of the car with a gun to her head.