Music fans have shared a clip of an A-list artist performing for the first time on a ‘big stage’ aged 11.
The singer, who is currently on a stadium tour, performed with a local country band in Pennsylvania in 2001.
After coming up on stage, the blonde-haired pre-teen sang with the Pat Garrett band.
She tells Pat, a local musician, she’s been singing for two years, before blasting out a rendition of Big Deal by LeAnn Rimes in front of thousands of people.
Clearly with stage presence from a young age, the singer shouts ‘hit it boys!’ before dancing around the stage.
The singer now fills out stadiums and has picked up dozens of awards for her music – so can you tell who it is?
Music fans have shared a clip of an A-list artist performing for the first time on a ‘big stage’ aged 11
The singer, who is currently on a stadium tour, performed with a local country band in Pennsylvania in 200
After coming up on stage, the blonde-haired pre-teen sang with the Pat Garrett band
It’s Taylor Swift!
Fans of the 14-time Grammy winning megastar have been sharing the clip – which was first made public as part of a French documentary – after her boyfriend Travis Kelce liked it.
A budding popstar even aged 11, Taylor, had headed to her local karaoke competition at the Pat Garrett Amphitheater in her home town of Reading, Pennsylvania.
Speaking to the Times in June, Pat, a petrol station and sheepskin shop owner as well as a musician, explained: ‘One week they showed up — 11-year-old Taylor and a whole gang of her people for the karaoke competition. Whoever won got to open the show at the Amphitheater.
‘She kept getting better, so she won — and so she opened.’
Taylor played with his band at fairs and country music festival.
After coming up on stage, she told the audience: ‘Hi everybody, I’m Taylor!.
Pat added that he suggested to Taylor’s father Scott the family should move to Nashville – a decision that ultimately put her on the path to stardom.
‘I told him, “Up here in Hershey they make bars. In Detroit they make cars. And in Nashville, they make stars. Move to Nashville”.’
Taylor Swift and her mother Andrea pictured at the 2010 American Music Awards. One of Taylor’s first managers praised Andrea for her ‘great marketing mind’
Marketing manager Andrea and stockbroker Scott tied the knot back in 1988 before welcoming their daughter Taylor the following year in 1989
Taylor and her family moved to Nashville three years later before releasing her first album Taylor Swift, aged 16 in 2006.
In the 18 years since, she’s released 11 albums, and has rerecorded four of her first six albums after being denied the opportunity to buy her Masters.
She is currently performing on the final leg of the record-breaking Eras Tour – which will net over a $1 billion.
Taylor Swift bagged her first record deal with Big Machine Records when she was only 15.
The Swift family had big plans for Taylor as early as 2001 – when she first recorded a demo CD, featuring covers of Hopelessly Devoted to You and Here You Come Again.
Before she signed with Big Machine Records, Taylor was already working with one of her earlier managers Rick Barber.
They went on to welcome Taylor’s brother Austin in 1992 (pictured in 2019) and the family lived in Wyomissing in Pennsylvania at a Christmas tree farm, before realising Taylor’s talent
Her doting parents became aware of her passion for music from a very young age and the family relocated to Nashville when Taylor was 14 and she soon had her hit Love Story
Pictured: Taylor Swift in 2005, shortly after she signed her first record deal with Big Machine Records
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, the star’s former manager praised Andrea for approaching her daughter’s career path with a clear marketing strategy.
He said: ‘The parents already had her MySpace and her website up and running.
‘The mom and dad both have great marketing minds. I don’t want to say fake it until you make it, but when you looked at her stuff, it was very professional even before she got her deal.’
Thanks to Andrea’s forward-thinking social media strategy, Rick then was able to gage Taylor’s fanbase’s reaction to her earlier music.
The former manager says he put use Taylor’s MySpace page to help them decide what the songs that eventually ended up on her debut album.
In an interview with Pollstar in 2014, Rick claimed Taylor told him ‘I want to be the biggest star in the world’ when they first started working together.
Andrea, had also been wildly supportive and played an instrumental part in Taylor’s now-billion-dollar career despite her cancer battle.
Scott is a longtime Merrill Lynch (a Bank of America company) employee whose registered investment adviser The Swift Group is based in the family’s hometown of Wyomissing, Pennsylvania.
Taylor is currently on the final leg of her Eras Tour, pictured in New Orleans
Taylor is now the biggest popstar in the world
Marketing manager Andrea and stockbroker Scott tied the knot back in 1988 before welcoming their daughter Taylor the following year in 1989.
They went on to welcome Taylor’s brother Austin in 1992 and the family lived in Wyomissing in Pennsylvania at a Christmas tree farm – which inspired her 2019 smash hit by the same name.
Speaking to Esquire in 2014, Taylor spoke about her childhood growing up on a Christmas tree farm in Pennsylvania, where she’s originally from, which she said Scott ‘tended to as a hobby’.
‘He’d tend to the farm as his hobby,’ she explained.
‘He’d get up four hours early to go mow the fields on his tractor. We all had jobs. Mine was picking the praying-mantis pods off of the trees, collecting them so that the bugs wouldn’t hatch inside people’s houses.
‘My parents were very strict about education and hard work, from the time my brother and I were really little kids.’
Her doting parents became aware of her passion for music from a very young age and the family relocated to Nashville when Taylor was 14 to help her pursue her dreams of becoming a singer.
Andrea previously told Entertainment Weekly of the move: ‘I never wanted to make that move about her ‘making it’.
‘Because what a horrible thing if it hadn’t happened, for her to carry that kind of guilt or pressure around. We’ve always told her that this is not about putting food on our table or making our dreams come true,’ she added.