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List Price: $15.95 | | Publisher: Broadway
Salesrank: 114073
Released: January 10, 2006 |
| Our Price: $9.46 |
| Used Price: $4.27 |
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| Media: Paperback |
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Editorial Review:
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.
Tori Amos: Piece by Piece Reviews:
Tori-iffic! 
2007-09-28 - Tori Amos is an amazing person. The book is a glimpse inside her head. It is purely phenominal the way she thinks, writes, and creates. She has an interesting family history that shapes how she creates, and her drive for knowledge is astounding. Reading her autobiography makes me want to be a more creative person. I want to learn and study everything. She is a very inspirational person.
Art is business 
2007-08-09 - I appreciated Powers' glimpse into the mind, spirit and artistry of Tori Amos. Amos straddles an interesting bridge between privacy and being genuine with her fans. Powers' depiction of her in this book both supports that odd juxtaposition and left me questioning even more just how Amos manages to pull it off. I valued the stroll through Amos' creative process and how interwoven that is with her spirituality. What surprised me, oddly, is how assertively Powers presents Amos by the book's end, with regard to claiming her sound, her contractual rights, deciding who makes the band, how she works with the band... I suppose that despite my best judgement I bought into that 15 years career span of faerieness and metaphoric repartee Amos is so well known for in interviews. But then how else would a woman so centered in her power succeed in such a competitive and patriarchal industry? Very interesting read, indeed.
Great academic/sociological/feminist reading.
2007-07-08 - I couldn't have read this book at a better time. My work has brought me to the study of artist-musician as demigod, and Tori Amos dedicates a huge portion of this book to an explanation of the divisions she creates within her own life: public persona, private individual, and performer. I've always loved Tori Amos' music for my own reasons, and I knew she was a preacher's daughter and part Native American, but until I read this I had not realized just how much myth and archetype play central roles in the creation of her songs (and in her life.) She states that the songs come to her (as one's friends would come to tea) and that she can actually see the architecture of each song. The extensive research she has done on myths and archetypes serves as the inspiration and framework for each song. She researches other artists' works (poets, writers, painters, photographers) in order to get a clearer sense of her song babies much as a detective would examine a crime scene for evidence. She says (and I'm paraphrasing all of this) that there comes a point when she just steps back and lets the song in. As a fellow artist, her ideas have given me some of my own concerning the creative process. As a woman, her take on her past life experiences has helped me to take a more positive and less individualistic view of mine. And as an intellect and a mystic who is not at odds with these opposing aspects of herself, she has reaffirmed for me the need to be who I am without reference to any external measures of rightness or conformity.
I recognize in some other reviews a few valid criticisms: namely, that Ann Powers sometimes places Amos on an impossibly high pedestal (though, yes, she is quite the formidable individual) and that sometimes Amos gets a little too abstract even for me. Also, when dialogue was employed it sometimes didn't come across as legit. Maybe Amos was remembering the jist of conversations that she'd had and then putting them in her own words.
Some bits I loved: the autobiographical details of her early life, especially her description of her mother's family (her grandmother and grandfather, and their neat histories and personalities); the "song canvases", in which she explains in detail or succinctly many of the songs on The Beekeeper; the interviews with other people in her personal and professional life, which serve as snapshots of the different and various aspects of Tori and life with Tori; her anecdotes of motherhood (having a toddler myself;) and her indepth explanations of the creation of each album (their concepts and the place she was in personally that inspired them)--she cleared up a few question marks I still had concerning Strange Little Girls.
I recommend this book for those of us who are both Tori fans and philosophers (questioning, analytic, intuitive, not content to experience without understanding) by nature.
I also want to add that while this book is woman-centered (which is refreshing, because many books, regardless of the gender of the author, aren't), Tori Amos does include analyses of different male gods and how they still live in herself and in culture today. And while she never explicitly says that men can identify with goddesses, she implies it by stating that within herself and every woman is a man and a woman, and as I just mentioned, male gods influence her and her work as well.
beautiful
2007-06-08 - this book is amazing. i recommend it to any fan...
it really makes you appreciate the later albums
She's a gem ain't she fellas!
2007-06-05 - Piece by Piece by Tori Amos is a thought-provocking, carefully crafted autobiography from my favorite female singer/songwriter. This book is filled with exciting and clever behind the scene stories from the road, family, and personal passions. Co-written by Ann Powers who is a journalist, Tori and Ann converse bath and forth through e-mail and phone conversations. Tori takes the reader into her special little world, she discusses and opens up about her three heartbreaking miscarriages, the day her daughter, Natasha was born, her love of touring, and recording her studio albums. Tori is such a creative force, I wish my brain could work like that! If you are looking for an interesting and mind-bending read then this book is for you. You are gonna love it, I sure did. Enjoy!
