Taylor Alison Swift is an American singer-songwriter. She is known for narrative songs about her personal life, which have received widespread media coverage. At age 14, Swift became the youngest artist signed by the Sony/ATV Music publishing house and, at 15, she signed her first record deal.
Her 2006 eponymous debut album was the longest-charting album of the 2000s in the US. Its third single, "Our Song", made her the youngest person to single-handedly write and perform a number-one song on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. Swift's second album, Fearless, was released in 2008.
Buoyed by the pop crossover success of the singles "Love Story" and "You Belong with Me", it became the US' best-selling album of 2009 and was certified diamond in the US. The album won four Grammy Awards, and Swift became the youngest Album of the Year winner.
BBC'S Lauren Laverne 'utterly heartbroken' as she announces mother's death
ok.co.ukBBC presenter Lauren Laverne has said she is “utterly heartbroken” following the death of her mother Celia on Friday. Laverne, who has been on-site at Worthy Farm hosting Glastonbury coverage for the BBC, announced the news on Instagram.
She wrote in a long post: “Yesterday I lost my Mam, Celia. She was the kindest, most compassionate and most tenacious person I have ever met. “Born in the middle of nine kids, she was a master peacemaker and persuader. “She passed her 11+ and went to grammar school which changed our family’s direction forever. “Met my dad at 16 and loved him every day of her life. “She ran the only reggae club night in the NE and told me that being young in the 60s felt like that line in Mr Tambourine Man “to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free”. “She worked as a seamstress and a casino dancer (also making costumes for the troupe) to pay her way through college and became a wonderful teacher, eventually managing all Sunderland’s colleges. “Somewhere along the line she had me and my brother and got political (she once chased someone from the BNP down our garden path with a rolling pin in one hand and me in the other arm) protested at Greenham Common and eventually became a city councillor.” Desert Island Discs host Laverne added that her mum “delighted” in helping people and thanked the teams at University College London Hospital who cared for her at the end of her life. “She had watched so many decades of history documentaries that when we met historian Michael Wood they chatted away like colleagues. “She loved children and was the most devoted and adored mother and grandmother you could ever meet.
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