The Facts

• Full Name: Taylor Alison Swift
• Birthday: December 13, 1989
• Birthplace: Reading, Pennsylvania
• Parents: Scott and Andrea Swift
• Siblings: A younger brother named Austin.

Biography

Taylor Allison Swift was  born December 13, 1989  in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania to Scott and Andrea Swift. Her father is a stock broker and her mother a homemaker. Taylor has one younger brother  named Austin. Music  has  always been in Taylor’s family, her  grandmother Marjorie Finlay was a professional opera singer. By the time Taylor was in 4th grade she won a national  poetry contest  with a three page poem entitled “Monster in my Closet”. She devoted one summer to writing a 305 page novel that remains unpublished.  Taylor graduated from high school in July 2008 from Aaron Academy, which offered a home-schooling program she was in.

By age ten she was writing her own songs and taking part in a local SNL inspired kids theater group called TheaterKids Live! The founder of the group  could tell right away that while  Taylor has a wonderful comedic timing, she was better  suited for country music.  Kirk Creamer  soon leased space at a local mall for weeknight performances. Taylor was soon making the rounds at open mike nights and other hometown events. Taylor  first started learning how to play guitar  from a computer repairman that showed her three cords. With those three cords Taylor wrote her first song “Lucky You.”  Taylor soon start using her talent  of song writing for an outlet for her pain and frustration of not fitting in at school.  If other kids at school reacted badly to her, she would write a song about them.

Taylor credits Shania Twain, Dolly Parton, LeAnn Rimes among others as some of her greatest inspirations.  At the age  of 11 Taylor and her  mother traveled to Nashville  where Taylor went and handed out her demo to every record label in town.  At 14 she was the youngest  person to ever be employed as a songwriter for  Sony/AVT publishing house. After being offered only a development deal by RCA she got a call from Scott Borchetta of Big Machine Records and signed with him at age 15.

Taylor released her first single “Tim McGraw”  in 2006 followed by her debut self titled album in October 2006.  Taylor  either wrote or co-wrote every song for her first album.  Taylor Swift is the longest charting album in the U.S. Billboards at 170 weeks. Taylor  truly  broke out in 2007 winning the CMA Horizon Award and released two more singles that year “Teardrops on My Guitar” and “Our Song”.  She became the opening acts for such musicians as Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Brad Paisley and Rascal Flatts.

In the summer of 2008  Taylor released an EP entitled Beautiful Eyes. It debuted at #1 on the Country charts while her first  album was still #2 Taylor became the first artist  since LeAnn Rimes in 1997 to achieve that. Beautiful Eyes was released inbetween her debut album and her second album to give the fans some new music while she was recording her second album. The EP had a limited release at only Wal-Mart stores and Taylor did very little press for it – afraid that if she promoted it too much people would think it was her second album.

Swift followed up those two with her November 2008 release of Fearless. The first single “Love Story” quickly climbed to number 1 not only on the country charts but the pop charts as well. Of the 13 songs on Fearless, 11 of them have made billboards Hot 100.  In April 2009, Taylor  opened her first headlining tour “The Fearless Tour” on April 23 in Evansville, Indiana.  Every single one of her tour stops  has sold out within minutes including New York’s Madison Square Garden in under a minute and Los Angeles’ Staples Center in under two.

2009 proved to be an amazing year for Taylor who won many awards including Album of the year, Female Entertainer of the year and Entertainer of the year from the Country Music Association.

Music is not the only thing Taylor as shown an interest in. While she appeared as herself in the Jonas Brothers’ 2008 3D concert Experience as well as 2009’s Hannah Montana: The Movie, Taylor branched  out and realized a dream when she played Haley Jones on CSI. Of her CSI guest appearance, Taylor said “When I’m really old and can only remember one story about my life to go back and relive and tell over and over and over again to the point where my grandchildren roll their eyes and leave the room – that’s the story. Ah, I can see it now. ‘You know, when I was a youngster, I got to guest star on CSI!’ It was marvelous! So marvelous, it was!””. Taylor will next be seen in Valentine’s Day as Samantha  Kenny which will be released in February 2010.

2010  is already proving  that it’s going to be another banner year for Taylor. She’s won a People’s Choice Award, has been nominated for a handful of Grammys, and released a new single “Today Was a Fairytale” which will be on the soundtrack for Valentine’s Day.  Taylor will also start up her 2010 leg of “The Fearless Tour” including a five city tour stop in Australia. Taylor plans to release her third album in late 2010.