Taylor Swift
At age 11, Swift made her first trip to Nashville, hoping to obtain a record deal by distributing a demo tape of her singing with karaoke songs.
She gave a copy to every label in town, but was rejected.
After Swift returned to Pennsylvania, she was asked to sing at the U.S. Open tennis tournament,
where her rendition of the national anthem received much attention.
Swift started writing songs and playing 12-string guitar when she was 12.
Swift began to regularly visit Nashville and wrote songs with local songwriters.
By the time she was 14, her family decided to move to an outlying Nashville suburb.
When Swift was 15, she rejected RCA Records because the company wanted to keep her on an artist development deal.
After performing at Nashville's songwriters' venue, The Bluebird Café, she caught the attention of Scott Borchetta, who signed her to his newly formed record label, Big Machine Records.
At age 14, she became the youngest staff songwriter ever hired by the Sony/ATV Tree publishing house.
