Taylor Swift

Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American country/pop musician, singer-songwriter, and actress. She has also done cover modeling and philanthropy.

She plays the guitar, banjo, piano, and ukulele.

Her career began in 2006 with her eponymous album which was certified as multi-platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. In November 2008, Swift released her second album, Fearless, and the recording earned Swift four Grammy Awards, including the Album of the Year; it also topped the Billboard 200 for 11 non-consecutive weeks. Her third album, Speak Now, which sold 1,047,000 copies in its first week. she has sold over 20 million albums and 34.3 million singles worldwide.

Early Life
Swift was born on December 13, 1989 in Reading, Pennsylvania and raised in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania. She is the daughter of Andrea Gardner (née Finlay), a homemaker, and Scott Kingsley Swift, a stockbroker. Swift has a younger brother named Scott. The family was raised on a Christmas tree farm.

Swift started her interest in writing when she won a national poem contest in fourth grade with the poem "Monsters in My Closet". At the age of ten, a computer repairman showed her how to play chords on the guitar, sparking her interest in learning how to play the instrument. After that, she wrote her first song, "Lucky You". At the age of twelve, Swift wrote a 350-page novel during one summer that remains unpublished. She was a victim of bullying, and wrote songs to cope with it.

She began to visit, and at the age of fourteen moved to, Nashville. She played her first major show at Bloomsberg Fair and played at local karaoke contests. She attended Hendersonville High School, though she was homeschooled her junior and senior years, and received her diploma in 2008.

Career
Swift made her first trip to Nashville where she hoped to get a record deal with demo tapes from her karaoke performances, but was rejected. She was asked to recite the national anthem upon coming back to Pennsylvania, and it received much national attention. When she was fifteen, she rejected RCA since they wanted to keep her on an artist development deal. She attracted the attention of Scott Borchetta who signed on his newly formed Big Machine Records.

In 2006, she released her debut single "Tim McGraw", reaching No.6 on Billboard magazine's Hot Country Songs chart. Her self-titled debut album was later released on October 24, 2006. The album sold 39,000 copies in its first week, spent eight weeks on the Top Country Albums, and peaked at No. 1 on Billboard Top Country Albums.

Swift's second studio album, Fearless, was released in the United States on November 11, 2008. The album debuted at No.1 on the Billboard 200 Album Chart. The lead single "Love Story" was a hit on both the pop and country charts. It is also the bestselling country album digitally, selling over 338,467 copies in eight weeks. In January 2009, Swift announced her North American Fearless Tour planned for 52 cities in 38 states and provinces in the US and Canada over the span of 6 months.