Gathering 'round with music

Fans will be able to follow Tori Amos' Scarlet's Walk tour through the Internet. Her North American journey begins this week in Tampa.

By BRIAN ORLOFF
© St. Petersburg Times
published November 3, 2002

Amos' latest journey starts Thursday at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, where she kicks off her tour. From there, she will travel across North America, following the path of her protagonist, Scarlet, on a quest of discovery.

"Stagewise, I'm trying to bring the old idea of, like, my grandfather sitting on the porch, singing the songs, tapping his feet on the porch making rhythm," she says.

"This is more of a campfire gathering. The tours, this is where people gather and exchange news, like you did in the old days. Because you can do that, as you all do on the Net, but sometimes you don't look into each other's eyes."

Amos, 39, has long been known as a starkly confessional lyricist, starting with her song about her rape, Me and a Gun, on her 1992 debut CD, Little Earthquakes. Scarlet's Walk is the Peabody Conservatory-trained pianist's seventh release, and her first album of original material since 1999's To Venus and Back.

Technology will augment the Scarlet's Walk CD and tour by allowing fans to follow Amos' journey on the Internet.

"The CD . . . is a key, and you put it in your computer, and it will take you to Scarlet's Web," she says. "Scarlet's Web will be running through the whole tour. The maps will come alive in detail on Scarlet's Web. . . . Within a few weeks, you'll have the whole record in detailed map form."

For instance, if a listener wants to know more about Wounded Knee after hearing about it on the album, the site can connect him with resources about American Indians that Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kan., is compiling for Amos' project.

Amos also will keep a journal of the tour that fans can follow on the Internet. "So that when we're going to Tampa, when we're going through other places, we're making our own discoveries. . . . People will be sending us messages, linking us up to other ways of thought."

Amos says this journey will be physical, emotional and, at times, political.

"You can't be crossing America at this time without deep, troubling political questions coming up," she says. Her lyrics delve into the terrorist attacks of last year, among other hot topics.

"I think that . . . some of our leaders were suggesting that if you were questioning anything about what we were doing as a country, then you didn't love America. I found that offensive. And I found that incredibly manipulative. So that kind of emotional blackmail started to stir up: 'Hang on a minute, if we are the land of the free and if we really love this creature we call America, her soul, then we must begin to ask the questions.' "

Betrayal -- by government, politicians, friends and lovers -- is another major theme in Scarlet's Walk. During her journey, Scarlet is hardened by the betrayals of trusted friends, which forces her to re-examine her role in relationships.

"She thinks she's found her soul mate in the second song, and that's going be pretty much it," Amos says. "And then she realizes that she was not his fantasy. She can't be his fantasy. She's a real woman with a heavy heart. She gets pulled, and she walks.

"And then, really, the story sort of opens up. . . . She's not tied to anyone, and she starts beginning to listen to how other people take in information, how they see the world. So, that's really how she begins to find out what it is she believes in."

On the song Virginia, Amos sings, "She may betray all that she loves/ and even wait for their savior to come/ still she'll lay down her body /covering him all the same." The lyrics bring up another of Amos' consistent themes, sexual politics.

"I think that right now women in the West can be deluded that they're making a choice of freedom when, in fact, they're choosing to be enslaved by the patriarchy by becoming objectified," she says. "Because only we can be our own real mother, our own real protector in the end."

Amos describes Scarlet's story as a thread that can reel listeners into direct, continuous communication.

"Scarlet's Walk is a story. It has a beginning, a middle and an end. And then I'm Tori taking Scarlet's walk, and we're all making our own body maps," she says. "But I like the idea that the story doesn't stop for me as a person. Scarlet's story stops. But I can now have my own."

PREVIEW

Tori Amos, with Howie Day, 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, Tampa. $32.50-$42.50. Call (813) 229-7827 or toll-free 1-800-955-1045; or go to www.tbpac.org.

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