Imagine winning major awards, touring with today's top country music artists and having a hit album before you even turn 18. Taylor Swift, an up and coming singer-songwriter in the country music world, has had an incredible year, and she continues to work hard in order to make her dreams come true. At the young age of 10, Taylor was showing signs of becoming a music dynamo. She started writing her own songs and performing her originals and some remakes at karaoke contests, festivals and fairs around her hometown of Wyomissing, Pennsylvania. She recorded demo tapes of herself singing along to karaoke songs, and made her first trip to Nashville at the age of 11 to hand out the tapes in hopes of scoring a record deal. However, it was her rendition of the national anthem at the U.S. Open tennis tournament that ultimately gained the attention of Nashville. She started to write songs with local songwriters in Nashville, and her family soon found themselves moving to an outlying suburb of Nashville called Hendersonville.In 2006, Scott Borchetta of Big Machine Records saw Taylor perform at Nashville's top songwriters' caf, The Bluebird Caf, and quickly signed her to his new label. In the summer of 2006, Taylor released her first single, Tim McGraw, and in October, 2006 her self-titled debut album came out. It debuted at #19 on the Billboard 200, a stunning feat for a new artist. It wasn't long before her album peaked at #1 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart. Her video for her first single set a world record when it appeared on Great American Country's Top 20 music countdown for 30 consecutive weeks. It also won Taylor the Breakthrough Video of the Year award at the 2007 CMT Music Awards. In May, 2007 she sang the song at the Academy of Country Music Awards and used it as a segue to introduce herself to Tim McGraw. Her ingenuity earned her the spot of opening act on Tim McGraw and Faith Hill's Soul2Soul 2007 Tour. At that point, she had already been an opening act on tours for popular country artists, George Strait and Rascal Flatts. Soon after the Soul2Soul tour, she went on the road with Brad Paisley.Between her major music debut and touring with some of the most popular names in country music, Taylor's life became a total whirlwind, but it didn't stop there. In October, 2007 her songwriting peers at the Nashville Songwriters Association International honored her with the Songwriter/Artist of the Year Award, making her the youngest artist ever to win the award. In November, 2007 she won the 2007 CMA Horizon Award, a huge honor bestowed to country music's most promising young talents. The icing on the cake, and perhaps the best birthday gift ever, came during the first week of December, 2007, when Taylor Swift attended a press conference to announce the Grammy nominations. Imagine her surprise when she found out she was nominated for the Best New Artist Award!Taylor turns 18 on December 13th, but she is already living the dream life and achieving major career goals. In just a few short years she has gained the attention of one of the top music oriented cities in the country, Nashville, has earned tremendous respect and admiration from her peers and fans, won awards and nominations from some of the biggest musical organizations in existence and has amassed a lifetime's worth of memories while being on the road with some of the most recognizable faces and voices in country music. She has been featured in top publications like Seventeen, CosmoGirl, Rolling Stone, People and Country Weekly and is on the cover of the December/January issue of Justine, a magazine for teen girls. This vibrant, talented, young singer-songwriter has only just begun to conquer the music world, and Young Hollywood thinks it won't be long before she adds a Grammy to her award shelf.For more information about Taylor, check out www.taylorswift.com.

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