For years, I have routinely been ribbed by friends, colleagues, relatives and others about how every mention of a musical artist to me turns into a story.
Those stories have become this column, which occasionally will tell the stories of encounters I’ve had with popular musicians.
And I’m going to ask all of you for suggestions for artists you’d like to hear stories about. Believe me, I got a million of ‘em – or at least hundreds.
For my first subject, I’ve chosen arguably the biggest popular music artist today.
Taylor Swift.
Swift recently marked the 20th anniversary of her self-titled debut album, and Rolling Stone magazine called her “one of the most significant artists of the 21st century.”
She was far from the most popular when I first encountered her, but certainly was the last time we interacted, as you’ll see.
In April 2007, a lithe, blond 17-year-old played a concert at the former Crocodile Rock Cafe — a cramped club located in a furniture storefront on Hamilton Street in Allentown.
With her debut album released just six months earlier, even her short set needed to be padded with a cover of Eminem's song "Lose Yourself."
But it also included the two hits she already had charted: "Tim McGraw," which broke the Top 10 on the country chart, and "Teardrops on My Guitar," which had gotten all the way to No. 2.
And she played a song that wouldn't be released for months — one that would become her first No. 1 hit, "Our Song."
That was Taylor Swift, who now, 20 years later, according to the Recording Industry Association of America, has sold more than 110 million albums and more than 125 million singles – making her one of the most successful recording artists of all time.
But in that earlier era, Taylor Swift was a regional girl.
She grew up on an 11-acre Christmas tree farm in Wyomissing, Berks County, and attended West Reading Elementary Center and Wyomissing Area Junior-Senior High School.
Among her earliest public performances were at Pat Garrett’s amphitheater off Interstate 78 in Bethel, Berks County.
When I interviewed Swift in 2018, she remembered playing at Pat Garrett's.
"Oh, I played there all the time,” Swift said. Then she added, “I played everywhere in Pennsylvania. Anywhere I could.”
Those shows also included playing a free concert at the Fairgrounds Square Shopping Mall in Reading in December 2001 — two years before she signed as a 14-year-old prodigy with Big Machine Records and already had moved to Nashville.
She released her first hit single, "Tim McGraw," in June 2006, and eight months later, on Feb. 8, 2007, played Allentown’s Crocodile Rock Cafe.
“They were nice to work with, very nice," Joe Clark, who owned and operated Crocodile Rock, told me before his death last year. "I shook her hand. She was standing at stage left, like on the corner between the stage and the bar, for a meet-and-greet. She did a wonderful meet-and-greet.
“She sold out, and she was extremely kind. And everybody was just so easy to deal with."
Clark remembered that “Back then, I was emailing Scott Swift, her father, when he was here in Reading. I said, ‘Hey, you want to join us? — We used to have these old guys we’d have breakfast with every morning; [former Lehigh County Executive] Dave Bausch was one of them.
“It was just a wonderful, wonderful experience."
Two months after playing Crocodile Rock, on April 6, 2007, Swift played a showcase at Sovereign Performing Arts Center in Reading.
Despite having a hit album, she stretched her 15-song set to include covers of "Lose Yourself" by Eminem, "Missing You" by John Waite and "Irreplaceable" by Beyoncé.
The last time Swift played the Lehigh Valley or Reading area was when she opened for Brad Paisley at Allentown Fair on Aug. 30, 2007.
The fair's now-retired marketing director and talent buyer, Bonnie Brosious, remembered that she met Swift six months earlier at her talent agency’s dinner for fair talent buyers in Las Vegas.
"She actually performed for us in the restaurant — unplugged, just her and her guitar," Brosious told me.
"Before dinner as the attendees were mixing, she walked over to me to say 'hello' and said she was sent over to me because I was likely the only buyer there that would know exactly where she grew up in Pennsylvania.
"She said she usually tells people Reading, but it was Wyomissing. She was delighted that [Brosious's husband] Carl and I said, 'of course' we knew it.
"As she continued talking to us, we marveled at her poise at age 16 and also enjoyed her classic Taylor exuberance that has become her hallmark.
"When she performed at the fair, she was just as friendly and talked to everyone working backstage."
At the fair, because she was an opening act, Swift's set was shorter — just six songs. She again opened with Eminem's "Lose Yourself."
But in addition to "Tim McGraw" and “Teardrops on My Guitar,” she played "Our Song," which would be released just over a week later and become her first No. 1 Country hit, and “Should’ve Said No,” which also would hit No. 1 and be the last single off her debut album.
A year later, she released her hit "Love Story," which sold eight times platinum and propelled her sophomore album, "Fearless," which sold 10 million copies and stayed at No. 1 for 11 weeks.
She hasn't played the Lehigh Valley or Reading area since.
My relationship with Swift took a downturn as she became more popular.
In 2010, I wrote a newspaper article headlined “The Rise Was Swift,” which argued that Taylor Swift would have the career trajectory of a boy band – a fast rise, a short time at the top, then quickly fading as her young audience moved on.
Her then-publicist was furious and called my boss at The Morning Call to say I would no longer be allowed to interview Swift, nor would I be approved to review her concerts.
And for years I wasn’t.
I, of course, was wrong: Swift continued to rise and get bigger. And bigger. And bigger.
In 2018, she was big enough to headline a concert at Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field.
But one benefit of that rise was that Swift got a bigger and better publicist, Tree Paine.
In advance of the show, Paine reached out to me and asked whether I would be interested in reviewing the show. Of course, I told her.
As I was driving to the show, I got a call from Paine asking whether I would like to interview Swift before the show. Though I hadn’t prepared for an interview, I quickly accepted and after arriving went backstage.
Swift was very nice and very accommodating (she even let my daughter sit on her “throne” and got a picture with her.
We talked about her growing up in Berks County, and she told me she visited her childhood home earlier that day. She talked returning to her childhood bedroom.
“I went to the house I grew up in” and “I got emotional when I went into my bedroom, and there’s another little girl’s things in there,” she said.
“It’s not my family farm anymore. We sold it when we went to Nashville. I’ve been thinking about how cool it is to be back where I started writing songs.”
She talked about Pat Garrett’s and, asked whether she remembered playing Croc Rock, responded, “Of course!”
But asked what she remembered about it, Swift drew a blank.
She was asked jokingly whether she remembered that it was a grungy club.
“I didn’t say that!” the singer said with a mix of shock and smile.
When the interview concluded, Paine suggested Swift and I get our picture together. Taylor leaned in (she’s a good 3 inches taller than I am) for the usual “arms around shoulders” photo.
I laughed and told her, given our history, that we should pose as if we had been forced to get a photo. I folded my arms and turned my back to her. She did the same.
And Paine took the picture.
