Tori Amos: Piece by Piece
A Memoir
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- USD 8.99
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- USD 8.99
Descripción editorial
An intimate, eye-opening look inside the life of one of the most unique and adored performers of contemporary rock music
From her critically acclaimed 1992 debut, Little Earthquakes, to the recent hit, Scarlet’s Walk, Tori Amos has been a formidable force in contemporary music, with one of the most dedicated fan bases in the industry. In Tori Amos: Piece by Piece, the singer herself takes readers beyond the mere facts, explaining the specifics of her creative process—how her songs go from ideas and melodies to recordings and passionately performed concert pieces.
Written with acclaimed music journalist Ann Powers, Tori Amos: Piece by Piece is a firsthand account of the most intricate and intimate details of Amos’s life as both a private individual and a very public performing musician. In passionate and informative prose, Amos explains how her songs come to her and how she records and then performs them for audiences everywhere, all the while connecting with listeners across the world and maintaining her own family life (which includes raising a young daughter). But it is also much more, a verbal collage made by two strong female voices – and the voices of those closest to Amos—that calls upon genealogy, myth, and folklore to express Amos’s unique and fascinating personal history. In short, we see the pieces that make up – as Amos herself puts it—“the woman we call Tori.”
With photos taken especially for this book by the photographer Loren Haynes, Tori Amos: Piece by Piece is a rare treat for both Tori listeners and newcomers alike, a look into the heart and mind of an extraordinary musician.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
After over a decade of making big-selling albums, but also being pigeonholed as an eccentric New Age princess, singer/songwriter Amos redefines her image in this appealing mishmash (coauthored with critic and Experience Music Project curator Powers) of her essays, quotes from her conversations with Powers and oral history observations from her band mates, husband, managers and friends. Readers may still find a few sprinklings of fairy dust in the proceedings, but Amos comes across as thoughtful, likable and witty, fully aware of her role as a female musician in the mainstream pop world yet determined to keep her work true to her spiritual and feminist perspectives. The book's structure lets Amos and Powers retain elements of a traditional biography they candidly detail Amos's family history, her shaky entry into the music business, her relationships with formal religion and her multiple miscarriages before giving birth to her daughter but it sidesteps a straightforward "this is my life" story line and lets Amos focus on how her experiences have shaped her songs. Powers and Amos also discuss practical issues about the music business and the roles female artists can take or sometimes can't take in controlling their public personae. With undoubted appeal to Amos's legion of fans, the book could offer additional interest to artists of all stripes, who may find reflections of their own experiences in hers. Illus.
