An iconic singer-songwriter from the 1990s looked almost unrecognisable, but for her famous flaming red hair as she appeared on BBC Radio 2’s Tracks Of My Years with Vernon Kay on Monday.
The musician became the youngest person ever admitted to the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University at age five.
After leading the 1980s-era pop band Y Kant Tori Read, she set off on a solo career and saw her greatest commercial and critical successes.
The songstress has had several hit singles throughout the years and has been nominated for a whopping eight Grammy Awards.
She is best known for hits like Cornflake Girl and Pretty Good Year, with her songs focussing on topics such as sexuality, feminism, politics, and religion.
But can you guess who it is?
An iconic singer-songwriter from the 1990s looked almost unrecognisable, but for her famous flaming red hair as she appeared on BBC Radio 2’s Tracks Of My Years with Vernon Kay on Monday
She is best known for hits like Cornflake Girl and Pretty Good Year, with her songs focussing on topics such as sexuality, feminism, politics, and religion. But can you guess who it is?
It’s Tori Amos!
Tori, 61, looked as though she had no aged a day as she posed for a photo alongside Vernon after discussing 10 of the most influential tracks in her life.
The daughter of a Methodist preacher, at 13 she began playing at gay bars around Baltimore, chaperoned by her father who reasoned that those places were the ones she was least likely to find trouble.
She previously told the Mail: ‘My career has been a long series of battles. Some of those battles were very messy, very bloody.
‘Early on I realised that there are men within the music industry who aren’t friends of any female artist.
‘My attitude was, “Mess me with and you will not survive.” I didn’t always make it easy for myself but I knew what I needed to do in order to survive as an artist.’
In 1998, she married British recording engineer Mark Hawley and the couple are the proud parents of daughter Natashya, 24.
Tori previously admitted it was her daughter who helped her cope with getting older, after struggling with facing the milestone of turning 50.
It’s Tori Amos! The songstress has had several hit singles throughout the years and has been nominated for a whopping eight Grammy Awards (pictured in 2009)
The daughter of a Methodist preacher, at 13 she began playing at gay bars around Baltimore, chaperoned by her father who reasoned that those places were the ones she was least likely to find trouble (pictured in 2001)
She told the Huffington Post: ‘It was a very challenging time for me going from 49 to 50 for all kinds of reasons.
‘And [Tash] was the one who said to me, “You have got to promise me that you’re going to get your head around this, because if you don’t get your head around this and you don’t rock as hard as you did 20 years ago, [then] what is your message to me, Mom? You’re telling me that 50 isn’t as powerful as 30. You’re not 84!”‘
Tori has admitted that she uses writing songs to help her to overcome pain and adversity.
Her first single from her 1991 debut album Little Earthquakes, Me And A Gun, was inspired by an incident in which the singer, then 21 and living in LA, was raped at knifepoint after performing in a piano bar.
Before giving birth to Natashya in 2000, she also suffered three miscarriages, the first two of which were dealt with in harrowing detail on 1998’s From The Choirgirl Hotel.
Tori explained: ‘Those songs were there to hold their hands out to me when I was at my lowest ebb.
‘It was my way of turning a destructive situation into a positive one. My mantra has always been that the best way to beat hardship is with creativity.
‘After my miscarriages, the only way for me to carry on was to get back out on tour. It was the only thing I knew how to do. Back then, I felt like a musician first and a woman second.
The songstress has had several hit singles throughout the years and has been nominated for a whopping eight Grammy Awards (pictured in 2005)
Tori previously admitted it was her daughter who helped her cope with getting older, after struggling with facing the milestone of turning 50 (pictured in 2023)
‘Now, things are different. I’m a mother and that’s really important. Today, the mother and the musician can sit next to each other. Even when the musician is out there in full swing, the mother doesn’t get switched off.’
Tori has spent much of her career advocating for sexual abuse survivors, being the first spokesperson for the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), the largest anti-sexual violence organisation in the US.
In a recent interview with The Guardian in November, she admitted that she thought that things for women were going backwards despite there being more help available, pointing towards Donald Trump’s election as evidence.
She said: ‘I think when we ask if things have improved, I think there are services that have improved, but the fact we’re looking at an administration whereby there seems to be almost a gender apartheid happening, and where misogyny is common practice.
‘I just didn’t think, after the last four years of the Trump administration, that women would have to face this again.’
She added: ‘We don’t know what we’re facing, with a president who seems to be fireproof. So, with the population feeling emboldened – some of them – I don’t know what kind of behaviour we’re going to have to deal with.
‘But, in some ways, because of where I am in my life, I’m sure that I have met men who treat me differently. And is that because they dared not show it to me? Because I won’t tolerate it.’
Tori has spent much of her career advocating for sexual abuse survivors, being the first spokesperson for the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), the largest anti-sexual violence organisation in the US (pictured in 2007)
In a recent interview with The Guardian in November, she admitted that she thought that things for women were going backwards despite there being more help available, pointing towards Donald Trump’s election as evidence
