It’s me and Tori Amos.
Well, wouldn’t YOU look stunned? She really is that radiant. It’s like she was dipped in the same luminous stuff that makes up Saturn’s rings.
She was in the parking lot behind the old Palace Theater on College Street, loading in for a show there sometime in the early ’90s. I’d interviewed her on the phone the previous week, so I took the opportunity to say hello in person. (It was also for the benefit of Kathleen Cei, a huge Tori Amos fan at the time, who took this photo.)
In our interview, the theater geek in me asked Amos why she still did quirky covers of rock songs, but was no longer playing older pop standards and showtunes, which had been a staple of her act since she was a child.
She took the question seriously, and promised that she would play some Gershwin or Cole Porter at the Palace Theater. In the parking lot, I gently reminded her of the promise.
She played no Gershwin or Porter that night.
That memory came back to me when I read the reviews of Tori Amos’ new album, Night of Hunters, which came out last week. It’s being called a concept album and a “21st century song cycle,” which isn’t far afield from theater music. Night of Hunters was released by the classical label Deutsche Grammophon, which means Tori Amos is labelmates with George Gershwin, Philip Glass, Kurt Weill and other theatrical composers.
A commenter on the album’s iTunes page laments, “This sounds like a musical. I have loved Tori 20 years and I have NEVER been disappointed until now.”