Although it may seem that Taylor Swift is an overnight success story, there have been a few bumps along the road to super stardom. She told Glamour that she had a record deal that fell through and that it was devastating to her. She had a meeting with RCA Records when she was 13. The record label had told her they want to sign her to a development deal. After about a year, the decision was made to shelve the project. Swift had to make a decision of staying in development with RCA, but she reasoned that if they didn’t believe in her then, they were probably never going to believe in her. Taylor made the tough decision to strike out on her own.

For Taylor Swift, the 19 year old country cutie, life could not not be better. The teen sensation just recently won the Country Music Academy’s Album of the Year. She was the youngest person to ever win that award and can also boast of having outsold the likes of Lil Wayne, Coldplay and Britney Spears last year. Currently Taylor, along with her opening act and best friend Kellie Pickler, has embarked on a 52 city musical tour. She has come a long way from her days growing up on her family’s Christmas tree farm. Taylor recently spoke with Glamour about her early career failures, the ups and downs of dating and about naming names.

Anyone who has grooved along with songs like “Forever And Always” is aware that Taylor does not shy away from telling it like it is and laying it all out, even if might be at a certain Jonas brother’s expense. Now that Taylor is a well known celebrity, there is no reason to believe she will start to clam up now. Taylor has asserted that she has never felt the need to tone down to be seen as a regular person. She notes that she wrote her bio on MySpace in the first person. Swift didn’t want her page to seem like a publicity promo and she did her own commenting and putting the videos and pictures up. She says she has approached her whole career that way and doesn’t intend to change.

Although it may seem that Taylor Swift is an overnight success story, there have been a few bumps along the road to super stardom. She told Glamour that she had a record deal that fell through and that it was devastating to her. She had a meeting with RCA Records when she was 13. The record label had told her they want to sign her to a development deal. After about a year, the decision was made to shelve the project. Swift had to make a decision of staying in development with RCA, but she reasoned that if they didn’t believe in her then, they were probably never going to believe in her. Taylor made the tough decision to strike out on her own.

With a full schedule of interviews, touring and meet and greets, the country star’s dating life by necessity is unconventional. She notes it will always be long distance even if she were to date the boy next door in Nashville. She said she would be flying to see him and flying him to different places to see her. She thinks it would involve even more scheduling than she has to deal with now. However if she were to meet someone who she thought was worth it, Taylor doesn’t think the inconveniences would stop her.

True, there were other singers who went home with hardware from the Country Music TV Awards, but the show seemed to mostly be a factory dream that came true for Taylor Swift, country music’s teen queen. Swift, a superstar at only nineteen years old, made her debut with T-Pain as T-Swizzle in a rap clip for “Thug Story,” then sang one of her singles “You Belong With Me,” and closed the show, joining Def Leppard, a favorite band of hers, on the classic anthem “Pour Sugar on Me.”

The night started with Swift in a skit living out her dreams (keep on wishing about that Tennessee Titans and Star Trek thing). In between her performances she dominated two different categories for two years in a row: Best Female Video and Best Video of the Year for her “Love Story” clip.

Swift thanked CMT for allowing her to live out so many of her dreams this year. She thanked both Garth Brooks and Shania Twain. Twain for producing such theatrical videos and Brooks for keeping his priority on the fans. She said she took her cues from them. She also thanked her little brother Austin for being her date for the night.

Although it was evident that it was Swift’s night, Brad Paisely was the won who won the most awards, winning Best Male Vocalist for “Waiting on a Woman,” Best Collaboration with Keith Urban on “Start a Band” as well as Performance of the Year on “Country Boy” with George Strait, Alan Jackson and Dierks Bentley. Urban, in accepting the award for “Start a Band” urged kids to learn the guitar. It’s the real thing, he said. Paisley quipped that “Rock Band” never did get anyone a date, ever.

Group Video of the Year went to Rascal Flatts for “Every Day,” Duo Video of the Year to Sugarland for “All I Want To Do,” and Wide Open Country Video to Kid Rock for his song “All Summer Long.” Rock joked when accepting his award that he must have won based on creativity for mashing up Sweet Home Alabama” by Lynyrd Skynyrd with “Werewolves of London,” by Warren Zevon.

Other appearances in addition to Def Leppard and T-Pain, included several other non-country stars which included the rocker Ted Nugent who appeared as a presenter and the B-52s joining Sugarland for the classic pop tune, “Love Shack.”

It’s pretty clear that John Mayer has a high opinion of himself. However it turns out that he thinks highly of Taylor Swift, the teen icon as well. In March, Mayer while on Twitter, revealed that he had just finished the song “Half of My Heart,” and he was hoping it would be a duet he would sing with Swift. He likened it to Swift making a killer Stevie Nicks to his Tom Petty type of song. This was very high praise coming from Mayer.

In Elle’s upcoming issue, Swift gushes about his tweet, talking about how freaked out she was when she heard because of the fact that she had been a huge fan of John’s for a very long time. She said she was very excited about the very idea that John would even mention her in a Twitter.

It seems that the way into Swift’s heart is through electronic flattery. The same could be said for Demi Lovato who shared somewhat of a twitter-mance earlier in the year with Mayer. If you’re wondering what a Mayer-Swift collaboration might sound like, you may not have to just leave it to your imagination. Mayer actually made an appearance at a concert of Swift’s last month in Los Angeles. They performed together on “Your Body Is A Wonderland” and “White Horse.”

Whether all of this will lead to a track together is anyone’s guess, but the pair do seem to have plenty of chemistry to pull it off, even if the Nicks-Petty comparison is quite the hyperbole. Given that Mayer seems to have quite a liking for teen pop singers, at least musically, is a Miley Cyrus collaboration inevitable as well?

After seeing the huge response that Taylor Swift received as the opening act at U.S. Bank Arena, you may be wondering whether it should have been her instead of Keith Urban as the headliner for the show. Swift, a nineteen year old country singer who has engineered the fast rise of her career through her autobiographical teen romance songs, had the fans screaming throughout her entire high energy, hour-long performance.

Urban followed Swift with his own two hour set. There was certainly a contrast in their styles. Whereas Swift appeared hungry for the adoration of the fans and made a big show of giving love back to her adoring audience, Urban played it very cool throughout his set. The sellout crowd ate him up just as enthusiastically as they did Swift. It seems the screamers wanted to be Taylor Swift and be with Keith Urban.

The forty one year old guitar player and singer from Australia, who is also known as the husband of Nicole Kidman in popular culture, put on the quintessential pop performance in an almost effortless fashion. Standing on stage to allow the ladies in the audience to admire him was half the battle, and his lead guitar playing, although very rarely thrilling, was always technically sound and seemed to come quite as naturally and easy to him as standing there looking pretty.

It was definitely a pop performance even though Urban does perform on the country circuit. The set of 19 songs was filled mostly with acoustic guitar rhythmic ballads that were more reminiscent of Bryan Adams than honky tonk.

Urban ventured into several parts of the arena, with seventy five percent of it being set up for his show. Most of Urban’s performances were on the main stage where he either ran around during up-tempo songs such as “Wanna Love Somebody Like You,” with back up from the five piece band, or him playing acoustic guitar while sitting atop a stool on ballad-like tunes like “You’ll Think of Me.”

At the other end of the arena’s floor there was a smaller stage set up. Urban went out to that stage for some of his ballad action such as “Once in a Lifetime.” Later on during the show, Urban sauntered over to the bowl section of the arena where a microphone was set up and sang “You Look Good in My Shirt,” being fondled by all the female fans as he passed through.

Making his way back to the main stage, the singer was surrounded by lighting and video, with the video screen that was behind the backup band, changing its location after each song. During the song “‘Til Summer Comes Around,” the screen changed from a vertical position to horizontal, radiating greens, red and blues in a ceiling directly over the band to enhance the song’s mood with impressive effects.

Swift’s set was very similar to other opening-act appearances she did in Riverbend seasons. Her set was somewhat longer for this show, adding a theatrical set where she hammered with mallets on 55 gallon rusty drums. Swift’s strength is definitely not in imitating the Blue Man Group. Swift’s finest moments came when she set up songs with a story, which usually involved a boy who had wronged her, and then really letting the song rip. It will be very interesting to see Swift finally get the opportunity to be the headliner for her very own show someday in Cincinnati. If her recent awards, record sales and hit songs are any indication, that opportunity should be coming very soon.

Taylor Swift, the rising country as well as crossover star, has confirmed the venues for a majority of the cities slated for her upcoming debut headlining tour.

A list of the January trek’s destinations have been released by the nineteen year old songwriter and singer. Most of the specific venues still have not been determined. In addition to specifying a majority of the amphitheaters and arenas on the tour, which will kick off officially in Evansville, IN on April 23, Swift firmed her traveling schedule up as well with Keith Urban. On June 5 the first pairing of Urban and Swift will take place in Cincinnati. The duo will be making a total of nine appearances together.

The headlining tour for Swift will stretch through the entire summer all the way into October. The tour concludes in Minneapolis, MN on October 10. Swift will be joined on her trek by Kellie Pickler, American Idol finalist, along with the newcomer Gloriana.

In her press statement released last month Swift said, it’s my dream come true to headline my own tour. This allows me to play more music each night than I have ever before. I write my own songs, so they all are stories inside my head. My goal for the tour will be to bring all of my stories to life.

Taylor Swift is continuing to ride high thanks to “Fearless,” her sophomore album, which topped the US Albums chart for 11 weeks, the tenth longest run as the No. 1 rated album in Billboard 200 chart history as well as the most weeks ever on top for any female country singer.

To date, “Fearless” has sold over 2.4 million copies and has also spawned a whole slew of singles on the radio, including “Fearless,” “White Horse,” and “Love Story.” All of the singles are currently featured on the Billboard Pop 100 chart. The album has had a total of seven songs charted during the debut week for the album alone, which tied Hannah Montana and Swift for most songs from a female singer to make it on the charts during a single week.

Like her triple platinum selling 2006 debut album, Swift either wrote or was a co-writer on each song that occurs on her new album. Seven tracks were written by herself. Swift is the first woman artist in the history of country music to have writing credit for every song in a debut with platinum selling.

Earlier this month “Fearless” was nominated for an award by the Academy of Country Music. Swift also received a nomination for Video of the Year for “Love Story.” On April 5, the awards ceremony will be held in Las Vegas.

Like Jesse McCartney, Ludacris and Diddy before her, Taylor Swift on Thursday night joined the rather illustrious list of musicians making cameo appearances in crime dramas.

Swift was able to live out a dream of hers of playing a dead girl in the crime show C.S.I. The episode tells the story mainly in the form of flashbacks to the year prior to Haley, Swift’s character, being found dead outside of the hotel run by her parents. The episode had all expected twists and turns from the detective show.

Taylor Swift is a long time fan of C.S.I. She appears in most of the episode. However most of her time on screen is spent standing there or sharing a couple quick lines with the Detective Nick Stokes who is played by the actor George Eads. The two had become friends a year before Haley died when Detective Stokes had been at the motel investigation the deaths of two people staying at the hotel. However, quickly the story becomes more about Haley and Haley’s family.

Fortunately for Swift, she was lucky to have the color of her hair do much of the acting. She wasn’t too bad. However unlike McCartney, Ludacris and Diddy, who have a lot more experience acting than Swift does, she definitely is still learning. Most of her dialogue was kept sweet and short. Her character, however, was not at all sweet. Instead, Haley was a rebellious teenager adopted by a mother still struggling with losing a daughter before the birth of Haley. (Warning this is a spoiler: we learn in the end that the mother of Haley accidentally killed her during a heated argument with scissors).

Considering Swift’s enthusiastic performance, it probably will not be her last time acting. In fact the budding actress has a cameo appearance lined up along with Miley Cyrus in the movie “Hannah Montana.”

Taylor Swift has the cover of the Rolling Stone covered.

During this past year Swift has had plenty of both heartaches and triumphs, but it seems to be all paying off for country music’s nineteen year old sensation.

Tomorrow Swift passes a major career milestone as newsstands all over the country will feature her as the latest cover girl for Rolling Stone magazine.

Vanessa Grigoriadis, writer for Rolling Stone, spent a significant amount of time with Taylor in order to write Swift’s profile and is providing insight into the country singer on Rolling Stone’s website.

Grigoriadis said, she is a tomboy. When I asked if she liked to get manicures she said, no I don’t. She also doesn’t get massages and eats bad food. Swift said she was a total tomboy and that if she been more of an athlete and better at sports that she could have been a tomboy. Since she wasn’t she got into singing.

The writer also added that Swift is very hands on when it comes to her career. She really does have a say into everything.

As far as being on the latest cover of the Rolling Stone, Grigoriadis said that Swift said she was very excited. She cried and discussed how she had never gone in thinking she would be on Rolling Stone’s cover.

During her concert Friday night in Cedar Rapids, IA at the U.S. Cellular Center, Taylor Swift announced that she planned to donate $100,000 for local flood victims.

Two months ago, Cedar Rapids suffered flood damages costing millions of dollars after Cedar River submerged and engulfed the town. Reportedly Swift was set to cancel her concert. However the mayor of Cedar Rapids asked her not to, acccording to a source close to Swift.

Swift told People Magazine, the people of this town this year have been through many losses. My heart definitely goes out to all of them. They stood by me, giving me a show that is sold out. In life you need to pay forward. Tonight that is what I am doing.

The eighteen year old performer was nominated recently for MTV’s Video Music Award as best new artist.

Taylor Swift, the young country singing sensation, just recently got her diploma for high school. It arrived in the mail following the completion of her senior year with Aaron Academy, the Christian private school. Aaron Academy offers home schooling for the town where she lives, Hendersonville, TN.

For ninth and tenth grade Swift went to public school. However, following the release of her debut album ‘Taylor Swift,’ which sold over 3 million copies, she switched to home schooling due to the fact that it was more flexible. Swift in an interview with The Tennessean said, I didn’t expect my senior year to go as it has. It’s really exciting to be able to live your dream as well as continue with your education all at the very same time.

Swift, who is touring with Rascal Flatts, made a recent guest appearance with the Jonas Brothers at a concert in Southern California. The concert was filmed to be used in a movie that is scheduled for release early next year.