Taylor Alison Swift is a multi-Grammy award-winning American singer/songwriter who, at the age of 20, became the youngest artist in history to win the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 2010. She has been named Billboard's Woman of the Year, American Music Awards Artist of the Year, and Entertainer of the Year for both the Country Music Association and the Academy of Country Music, among many other accolades. As of this writing, she is also the top-selling digital artist in music history.
Taylor Swift was born on December 13, 1989, in Reading, Pennsylvania, to Andrea (Finlay),a one-time marketing executive, and Scott Kingsley Swift, a financial adviser. Her ancestry includes German and English, as well as some Scottish, Irish, Welsh, and 1/16th Italian. She was named after James Taylor, and her mother believed that if she had a gender-neutral name, it would help her forge a business career.
Taylor spent most of her childhood on an 11-acre Christmas tree farm in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. When she was nine years old, the family moved to Wyomissing, PA, where she attended West Reading Elementary Center and Wyomissing Area Junior/Senior High School. Taylor spent her summers at her parents' vacation home at the Jersey shore. Her first hobby was English horse riding. Her mother put her in a saddle when she was nine months old, and Swift later competed in horse shows.
At the age of nine, Swift turned her attention to musical theatre and performed in Berks Youth Theatre Academy productions of "Grease", "Annie", "Bye Bye Birdie", and "The Sound of Music". She traveled regularly to New York City for vocal and acting lessons. However, after a few years of auditioning in New York and not getting anything, she became interested in country music.
At age 11, after many attempts, Swift won a local talent competition by singing a rendition of LeAnn Rimes' "Big Deal", and was given the opportunity to appear as the opening act for Charlie Daniels at a Strausstown amphitheater. This interest in country music isolated Swift from her middle school peers.
At age 12, she was shown by a computer repairman how to play three chords on a guitar, inspiring her to write her first song, "Lucky You". She had previously won a national poetry contest with a poem entitled "Monster in My Closet", but now began to focus on songwriting. She moved to Nashville at age 14, having secured an artist development deal with RCA Records. She left RCA Records when she was 15, as the label wanted her to record the work of other songwriters and wait until she was 18 to release an album, but she felt ready to launch her career with her own material.
Taylor released her debut album, "Taylor Swift", in October of 2006 and received generally positive reviews from music critics. The New York Times described it as "a small masterpiece of pop-minded country, both wide-eyed and cynical, held together by Ms. Swift's firm, pleading voice". Her single "Our Song" made her the youngest solo writer and singer of a #1 country song. The album sold 39,000 copies during its first week.
In September 2009, she became the first country music artist to win an MTV Video Music Award when "You Belong with Me" was named Best Female Video. Her acceptance speech was interrupted by rapper Kanye West, who had been involved in a number of other award show incidents. West declared Beyoncé's video for "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" to be "one of the best videos of all time". When Beyoncé later won the award for Video of the Year, she invited Swift onstage to finish her speech.
She released her third studio album in October 2010, "Speak Now", and wrote all the songs herself. She originally intended to call the album "Enchanted" but Scott Borchetta, her record label's CEO, felt the title did not reflect the album's more adult themes. Swift toured throughout 2011 and early 2012 in support of "Speak Now".
As part of the "Red" promotional campaign, representatives from 72 worldwide radio stations were flown to Nashville during release week for individual interviews with Swift. She made television appearances on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Good Morning America, The View, Late Show with David Letterman, ABC News Nightline, and All Access Nashville with Katie Couric. She performed at Los Angeles' MTV VMAs and London's Teen Awards, and will also perform at Nashville's CMA Awards, Frankfurt's MTV Europe Music Awards, Los Angeles' AMA Awards, and Sydney's ARIA Music Awards.
Taylor Swift is only beginning to emerge as an acting talent, having voiced the role of Audrey in the animated feature The Lorax (2012). She also made appearances in the theatrical release Valentine's Day (2010) and an episode of
