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Country Artist Achieves Swift Rise To Stardom

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By CURTIS ROSS, The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 24, 2008

TAMPA - While most people her age are focused on midterms, prom and graduation, Taylor Swift has other things on her mind. Other things such as a 2 million-selling debut CD and a Grammy nomination for best new artist.

"It feels like I'm walking around in a dream," Swift, 18, says from her home in Hendersonville, Tenn.

Winning the Country Music Association's Horizon Award, its version of best new artist, in November left her in a similar daze, she says.

The awards may be dazzling. But if sheer determination counts for anything, Swift's success was all but guaranteed.

Swift, whose tour brings her to Tampa on Saturday, decided she wanted a career in music at age 10 and began pursuing it in earnest immediately.

"Every weekend I'd get my parents to drive me to festivals or karaoke contests, anywhere I could get noticed," Swift says.

She began playing guitar and writing her own songs soon after. Her songwriting talent blossomed quickly, and she won a publishing contract in Nashville at age 14.

Her family relocated from its Pennsylvania farm to Tennessee, and Swift was soon splitting her days between class work and songwriting.

"Every day I would go to school and then Mom would pick me up and drive me downtown to whichever publishing company I was writing at that day," Swift says. "And I would write songs with people I never met before, and I'd walk out of there with a CD of a song I'd made."

The songwriting led to a recording contract, and her first album, "Taylor Swift," was released in 2006. The album sold well. Then it began selling even better.

The album sold 40,000 copies its first week of release, "which is good for a new artist," Swift says.

Powered by singles and videos such as "Tim McGraw" and "Teardrops on My Guitar," the album gained momentum well after the release date.

"My album hit No. 1 on album charts a year after it was released," Swift says.

It has been at or near there ever since. For the week starting Saturday, the album is No. 1 on the Billboard Country Album chart and No. 5 on The Billboard 200 pop album chart.

It's some consolation for missing her senior year.

"I'd be ignorant if I said I'm missing nothing because I am," Swift admits. "But this is the right life for me."

ON TOUR

Taylor Swift

WITH: Jeff Allen

WHEN: 8 p.m., Saturday

WHERE: Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, Morsani Hall, 1010 N. MacInnes Place, Tampa; (813) 229-7827

COST: $29.50 to $45.50

Curtis Ross can be reached at cross@tampatrib.com or (813) 259-7568 or

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