Taylor Swift is currently touring the world, dating a Super Bowl tight end, raking in millions of dollars by selling millions of records and wiggling her way into the ears of just about every living organism on planet earth sufficiently evolved to be blessed with the gift of hearing.

But where did it all begin? We take a look at who discovered the talent that is currently stomping her heels all across the globe and looking more powerful than ever.

If you recognise the face above, it’s because you’ve probably seen Toby Keith, the man who gave Taylor Swift a pathway to her first deal, in the news recently. The country singer sadly died just a few days ago at the young age of 62. As well as his successful career as a music artist, Keith could also claim to have given Swift her first step in the industry. But we’ll get to that.

Swift’s talent was discovered when she was just a teenager back in 2004, singing at the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville. She was first ‘found’ by then-DreamWorks Records executive Scott Borchetta. The executive was impressed with Swift’s talent for country music, and wanted to sign her to a record label. However, he had the simple yet quite fundamental problem of not having one anymore.

When did Swift sign her first record deal?

Right around this time, Toby Keith had left Borchetta’s label, DreamWorks Records, seeing it shut down, and founded his own record label, Show Dog Nashville, from where he released his own music as well as signed other artists.

With DreamWorks gone, Borchetta left to start his own label, Big Machine Label Group, a joint venture between both him and Keith’s label, Show Dog Nashville, with the two becoming “sister companies” and Borchetta handily using Keith’s promotion staff.

And so, Borchetta now had the infrastructure to sign Swift, which he duly did, and the songwriter joined the label as his first ‘big’ signing in 2005. A self-titled and largely self-penned debut album, Taylor Swift, was released on October 24, 2006.

Swift was tied to Big Machine Label Group all the way up to 2018, when she signed for Republic Records. Under Borchetta’s label, the singer released a total of 4 albums; she brought that number up to 10 with her second record label. Her latest project, entitled The Tortured Poets Department, is scheduled for release later this year.