Biography

At the age of ten, Swift began to perform around her home town, Wyomissing, singing at karaoke contests, festivals, and fairs, and also started writing songs. Her first exposure to the music business consisted of recording demo tapes at a studio. At age 11, Swift made her first trip to Nashville in hopes of obtaining a record deal by handing out a demo tape she had made of her singing along to karaoke songs. She handed this tape to receptionists at every label on Music Row. After Swift returned to Pennsylvania; her break came at the U.S. Open tennis tournament, when her rendition of the national anthem moved the crowd. Swift signed to a record label when she was 13 years old, but walked away because it "wasn't where she wanted to be".

Swift began to regularly visit Nashville, where, at age 14, she wrote songs with local songwriters. Eventually, her family decided to move to an outlying Nashville suburb. Taylor Swift performed at Nashville's premier songwriters' café, The Bluebird Cafe, catching the attention of Scott Borchetta who signed her to his newly-formed record label, Big Machine Records.

Taylor Swift's first single, "Tim McGraw", was released to radio in Summer of 2006 and on October 24, 2006, her self-titled album was released. Swift wrote or co-wrote all of the songs on the album, which debuted at #19 on the Billboard 200 and sold more than 61,000 during its first week.

The second single from the Taylor Swift album, "Teardrops On My Guitar", was released February 24, 2007. The song was inspired by a true event during her time in high school in which she liked a boy named "Drew Hardwick". He only saw Swift as a friend and a go-to person for advice about his relationship with his girlfriend. She noted she heard "through the grapevine" that Drew is well aware the song was written about him. "Teadrops on My Guitar" originally made its peak positions in Summer 2007, peaking at #2 on the Billboard Country Chart and #33 on the Billboard Top 100. The song was re-released to the Hot 100 and Pop 100 in late 2007 with a pop remix that brought "Teardrops on My Guitar" to #13 on the Hot 100 and #11 on the Pop 100. Swift's second studio album is slated for a fall 2008 release. In a repeat of her debut album, Swift is expected to have at least a co-writing credit on every track.