Tori Amos

The audience that turned up for a Moody Blues concert at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland on July 3, 1991, clearly didn't know what it was in for when it encountered the opening act, a totally unknown 27-year-old American singer/pianist named Tori Amos. Just as clearly, however, that audience was taken with Amos immediately. In that time and place, her similarity to Kate Bush would have been more apparent than it was, for instance, to Americans later. But Bush was never so provocative; she didn't sing about menstruation and orgasms the way Amos did, in intense performances that the rest of the music world would become familiar with starting about six months later when her debut solo album, Little Earthquakes began to get attention. The Moody Blues fans responded, listening carefully and applauding, even forgiving her for going up on the lyrics to "Happy Phantom," and after nine songs (seven that would appear on Little Earthquakes, plus the a cappella "Song for Eric" and "Upside Down," which later emerged as B-sides), they even brought her back for an encore, which turned out to be Led Zeppelin's "Thank You." Just over a year later, on July 7, 1992, she returned to Montreux as a headliner, having charted all over the world, and sang many of the same songs, adding an even more provocative one she hadn't risked the first time, "Me and a Gun," as well as a cover of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and "Thank You" again, done as a medley with "Whole Lotta Love." (Notwithstanding her new status, she had to scold talkers during "Little Earthquakes," which hadn't been necessary the year before.) Finally available 16-17 years later, this album (also issued as a DVD with three extra songs from 1992) chronicles her breakthrough. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide