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Post by Admin on Jan 11, 2015 3:44:22 GMT
The search to fill in a weirdly untold story about Taylor Swift has become a medium-speed car chase. I’m in my vehicle, following this guy Joe in a red Mazda through the hills surrounding Reading, Pa., looking for Ronnie Cremer at DC Computer Repairs. Swift’s “Shake It Off” is blaring, and the song’s energy adds tension to the drive. It is fair to say we’re zipping, scooting through a few yellow lights. This is Joe’s style, apparently. He makes a sharp left into a McDonald’s; I pull beside him in the parking lot and roll down the window. “I’ll be right back, I’m just going to pick up my friend,” Joe says in a Queens-bred, wiseguy patter. The Swift tale has been told endlessly, but never fully. Anyone with basic knowledge of pop culture can recite the cast of friends, exes and characters in her official bio: John Mayer, Lena Dunham, Joe Jonas, Karlie Kloss, Harry Styles. But there is also the guy we’re racing to find. Ronnie Cremer. The man behind the myth. Or the man the myth forgot. Haven’t heard of him? Neither had I, until a few hours ago, at least not by name. But now there is an identity. And an address. And a sense that the story behind an icon is minutes away. Joe — more on him later — is leading me. He emerges from the McDonald’s with a guy who he was supposed to meet for coffee, before he got wrapped up in this pursuit. He gets back in his car, and takes me to the computer store. Ronnie is not in his office. He is out on a service call. So Joe and his friend take me back to McDonald’s, and we have coffee for about an hour. I eventually return to the place alone and ask the nice woman at the desk if Ronnie is back yet. A man — shaved head, black shirt, average height, roundish — is standing behind her; he smiles and says, “I’ve been dreading this moment.” The previous evening: Gray, 46 degrees, and foggy at the former Swift home on Grandview Blvd. in Wyomissing, Pa. The street is dead. If you’re from a suburb situated this many hours from a major city, you have sat staring out a window like this one, thinking something like, “There’s a little girl in this little town/With a little too much heart to go around.” That’s from the first song that Swift wrote, “Lucky You.” People aching to taste more of the world will turn inward in a place like this, and plot an exit. Swift has many times told a story that goes like this (from a 2009 promotional DVD): “When I was about 12 this magical twist of fate (happened). I was doing my homework [when the tech fixing my computer] looked over and saw the guitar in the corner. And he said, 'Do you play guitar?' I said, ‘Oh. No. I tried, but . . . .’ He said ‘Do you want me to teach you a few chords?' and I said, ‘Uh, yeah. YES!’” Which brings us to Ronnie Cremer and the moment he’s been dreading. “I don’t want to burn any bridges,” he says, as we settle into two stools at the front of his street-level computer store. “But at the same time, at some point it’s gonna be time.” A reporter is here. So it’s time. Around us: computer monitors, cords, an acoustic guitar. Above us on the wall: A Taylor Swift platinum album — a gift from Scott Swift, the singer’s dad. Ronnie fixes computers, yes, but is also a respected local musician. That official story about the computer tech? Ronnie has seen Taylor recount it on many TV shows, and has wished to hear what he says is the full version: “The first time I heard of Taylor, my brother had a theater company. They would have parties after the show, and they would do karaoke. My mom would attend these.” Ronnie continues: “I only met Taylor face-to-face in 2002. I had a shop up in Leesport. It was a computer shop, and that’s where I had my little studio. My brother brought Taylor and her mom and her brother over and introduced me, and said, ‘would you be interested in recording a demo?’ “It was a couple cover songs. I recorded the demo for her. It wasn’t a great demo, but it was a demo. “After I did the demo, I was approached again by my brother, and by Andrea Swift. ‘Would I be interested in giving guitar lessons for Taylor? We’re trying to teach her how to play country music.’ I said, ‘I don’t know if I can teach country music. I don’t know the first thing about country music. I know rock music.’ “But eventually we did get together. They came out to my place once, but from there on in we met at her house in Wyomissing.” And from there, Ronnie says, they continued working, two evenings a week, $32 per hour. So, he never went over to fix her computer? “Honestly, it was probably months before I even looked at a computer for them,” Ronnie says. “I did do computer work for them, but the computer work eventually came after I started doing guitar work. It went from teaching her guitar, to teaching her how to structure songs.” “In all honesty, I thought she was a pretty good student,” Ronnie says, still sitting on that stool at the front of his computer store. “We started with G, D, E, A,” he says. “Where she had problems were the more difficult chords, the F’s and the B’s. F is really hard on the fingers, so I would teach her things like, ‘OK, if you want to play a song in F, play it in D and put the capo on the third capo.’ So you notice when she plays, she still moves that capo around a lot.” At first, progress was slow. “The first couple months, I thought it was a joke,” Ronnie says. “I thought, here’s a bunch of rich people ...’ But Taylor kept at it, and they began working with Ableton Live, a computer program useful for songwriting and recording. “I said, ‘Here’s your chorus. Here’s your verse. Move these around, and look what you’ve got. You can write one verse, one chorus, and then you’ve got a song.’ That just clicked to her, and made sense.”
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Post by Admin on Jan 12, 2015 9:18:33 GMT
It wasn't until the age of 9 that Taylor started to develop her interest in music. Orth remembers Swift always being bubbly and full of talent, especially when it came to singing. Swift first turned to musical theatre at school and performed in numerous productions at Berks Youth Theatre Academy including "Bye Bye Birdie" and "Annie." She traveled regularly to New York City for vocal and acting lessons but became discouraged by Broadway after numerous unrecognized auditions. At age 10, Taylor got serious about her music career. "I think I first realized I wanted to be in country music and be an artist when I was 10. And I started dragging my parents to festivals, and fairs, and karaoke contests..." Taylor was quoted saying. At 11, Swift got her first musical debut when she was offered to sing the National Anthem at a Philadelphia 76ers game. A few months later, still at age 11, Taylor won a local talent contest by singing a rendition of LeAnn Rimes's "Big Deal." Her win was apparently a big deal since it gave her the opportunity to appear as the opening act for Charlie Daniels at an amphitheater near Strausstown. Her first big moment in the spotlight opened her eyes to the world of country music. Inspired by Faith Hill's episode of "Behind the Music," Taylor decided that she needed to travel to Nashville, Tennessee to get her name out in the country music business. So, at the age of only 11, she took her mom and went to the country music capital to submit a demo of herself signing covers of Dixie Chicks and Dolly Parton songs. Unfortunately Swift was only met with rejection.
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Post by Admin on Jan 14, 2015 4:01:59 GMT
Swift was first noticed by RCA Records after performing some of her original songs at a showcase. The then 14-year-old eight grader was given an artist development deal which brought on frequent trips to Nashville with mom Andrea. At the age of 14, Swift's father transferred offices to Nashville and the entire Swift family picked up and moved from Pennsylvania to Tennessee. Although Swift's parents apparently took the pressure off her by saying they wanted to move because they loved the area, Taylor knew it was time to kick her country music career into high gear. After signing an artist development deal with RCA Records, Swift began teaming up with experienced songwriters to help her develop her song ideas. She eventually formed a lasting relationship with RCA songwriter Liz Rose who met with her once a week after school. When Taylor turned 15, she left RCA Records since she didn't want her songs being sung by other artists. The recording company also wanted her to wait until she was 18 to record her first debut album and that didn't go too well with her. Swift also cut ties with former manager Dymtrow who later sued her and her parents due to a breach in management contract. Feeling like she was back to square one, Taylor went back to performing constantly anywhere from cafes to talent competitions hoping someone would realize her talent. Her luck sparked when Scott Borchetta, a DreamWorks Records executive, saw her performance at Bluebird Cafe in Nashville when she was only 15. Borchetta, who was preparing to form his own independent record label decided that Taylor had the talent he was looking for a decided to sign her. The recording label, Big Machine Records, was officially founded in September of 2005 and eventually signed other big names in country like Rascal Flatts, Tim McGraw and recently "The Voice" 2013 winner Danielle Bradberry.
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Post by Admin on Jan 17, 2015 3:42:56 GMT
Shortly after signing her first record deal, Swift began working on her debut album. She reportedly persuaded the record label to hire her original demo producer Nathan Chapman since she believed they had a special chemistry. In 2006 at the age of 16, Swift released her first single Tim McGraw after the country music icon. The song was inspired by Swift's freshmen year boyfriend who was a senior and was going away to college. The single peaked at number 40 on the Billboard Hot 100 and at number 6 on Billboard's Hot Country Songs. In October of 2006, when Swift was only 16, her first self-titled album, Taylor Swift was released featuring 11 songs all written by Swift. Most of the songs were written during her freshmen year of high school with the help of a few songwriters on some tracks. Although the album only debuted at number 19 on the Billboard 200, by the second month, the album climbed to number 5 with sales reaching 47,000 copies. Her album was the longest stay on the Billboard 200 by any album released in the decade and topped the chart for Billboard's Top Country Albums for 24 weeks. Swift was able to promote her album by going on tour as the opening act for country stars George Strait, Brad Paisley and Tim McGraw himself. She sent the album to radio stations to play it and took to the internet to start a fan base. It wasn't long before Swift was back in the recording studio. In 2007 she released holiday album Sound of the Season: The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection, and then in EP in 2008 called Beautiful Eyes. In 2008, Swift started her rise to fame after winning the Country Music Association's Horizon Award for Best New Artist, the Academy of Country Music Award's Top New Female Vocalist awards and the American Music Award for Favorite Country Female Artist honor. She was also nominated for her first Grammy Award for Best New Artist but lost to Any Winehouse." In September of 2008, when Swift was 18, she released the single Love Story, which became the second best-selling country single of all time peaking at number 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Four more singles followed including You Belong with Me,which peaked at number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. Both singles were from her second studio album, Fearless, that was released in November of 2008. Unlike her last album, Fearless debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 Album Chart with sales of 592,304. Eventually sales reached 8.6 million copies worldwide and became the top selling album of 2009.
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