The World According to Chuck

(UB-Day marks the birthdays of people born between 1955 and 1964. If you want to know more, please read this post.)

Tori Amos (8/22/1963)

Myra Ellen Amos was born on the road, arriving while her family was traveling in North Carolina from their home in Washington, D.C.  Before the age of 3, she was playing the piano, and by 5 she was composing.

In 1968, she won a full scholarship to the Peabody Conservatory of Music, at age 5 being the youngest person ever to attend that school.  At 13 she began studying at Montgomery College and playing at piano bars, under the careful eye of her father.

As a high school senior, she entered a song-writing competition sponsored by the Baltimore Orioles and won, and her song (co-written with her brother, Mike), “Baltimore,” became her first single.  Around this time, she adopted the name “Tori” at the suggestion of a friend.

At age 21, Tori moved to Los Angeles to pursue her career, and managed to get several acting jobs, including on the courtroom soap opera Trial by Jury.  She also formed a band, Y Kant Tori Read (a joke, inspired by the fact that she was a poor sight reader).  The next year, Atlanta Records gave her a six-record contract, although her debut album was a critical flop.

She eventually went on to a solo career, and in 1991 her single Silent All These Years became her first hit.  She’s built a solid career, becoming and remaining one of the world’s top touring artists; her tours regularly sell out.

Tori Amos is also notable for her long-time friendship with writer Neil Gaiman; the two have collaborated several times.

Trivia: While working as an actress in the early 1980s, she got a commercial for Kellogg’s, beating out a then-unknown Sarah Jessica Parker.

Age Today: 44.

Shares Birthday With: Paul Molitor (51), Cindy Williams (60), Bill Parcells (66), Valerie Harper (67), Carl Yastrzemski (68), Norman Schwarzkopf (73), and Ray Bradbury (87).

This Day In History: Theodore Roosevelt became the first U.S. President to ride in a car (1902).