File photo of Taylor Swift performing at Huntsville's Big Spring Jam in 2007

Ten years before Taylor Swift announced a tour likely to gross around $10 million per show on ticket sales alone, she played a tertiary-market gig for less money than the cost of a crappy used-car. She was just a country-music opening act back then. Her hairdo was still curly. But Swift already possessed talents that would eventually transform her into a sophisticated, stadium-filling pop superstar. Shuriken-sharp, emotionally-direct songwriting. The ability to make thousands of strangers feel like they’re her besties. Megaton onstage star-power. All of this was clearly on display during Swift’s Sept. 30, 2007 performance at Big Spring Jam, a now-defunct music festival held in Huntsville, a north Alabama city best known for aerospace engineering, Space Camp, being the hometown of Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales and where infamous slugger Jose Canseco played minor league baseball.

By Matt Wake | mwake@al.com

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It was a lovely denim-blue Sunday night. Swift was just 17 years old. Her 7:15 set was sandwiched between "American Idol" alum Bucky Covington and headliner LeAnn Rimes, on a Big Spring Jam stage sponsored by local country radio-station WDRM and located at the corner of Williams Avenue and Church Street in downtown Huntsville.

An estimated crowd of 25,000 had gathered in the street. A large percentage of those were teenage girls there to hear Swift perform songs from her 2006 self-titled debut album, which included the hits “Tim McGraw,” “Teardrops on My Guitar” and recently released single “Our Song.” Julia Whisenant Martin, then a 13-year-old Arab Junior High student who attended Swift’s Big Spring Jam show, says: “Her music was how I felt about people I liked, so I connected with that. I was a huge fan because she reminded me of me.”

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File photo of a crowd at Big Spring Jam 2007

According to an industry professional who worked closely with Big Spring Jam, the festival booked Swift for just $1,000 for an hour-long set. Huntsville-based concert-promoter and Big Spring Jam co-founder Donn Jennings still has Swift's 20-page or so contract in his files, along with contracts for every act to ever play the festival, but declines to get specific on money. "I really can't tell you what her fee was, but it was really low," Jennings says. (Swift's label Big Machine Records did not respond to an emailed request for an interview with a label rep for this story.) Big Spring Jam began in 1993 but by 2011, like many other similar Southeast festivals, it had run its course, as the business model moved towards mega-events like Bonnaroo.

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File photo of Dixie Chicks performing at Big Spring Jam 2008

During its existence the Jam featured many eventual country stars, like Zac Brown Band, Kenny Chesney, Dixie Chicks, Rascal Flatts and Keith Urban, on their way up. And often on the cheap. Since Huntsville is just a two-hour drive from Nashville “a lot of the bands were willing to book with us early on and maybe later that year they would become a lot more popular,” Jennings says. “We had heard about Taylor Swift for the last year or so and some of the agents I talked to in Nashville were real high on her as far as the potential. Back in those days her parents basically managed her.” Swift was a Pennsylvania native whose family relocated to Nashville in her mid-teens. In April 2007, Jennings booked her via Creative Artists Agency’s John Huie to perform at Big Spring Jam, with the hopes of drawing a younger demographic. By the time of the festival her price for future bookings had risen significantly. According to Jennings, Swift’s dad worked her merch table that night at Big Spring Jam. “And they sold a lot of it, believe me.”

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Rebecca Kimrey Nunley first heard of Swift a few months before Big Spring Jam, through a friend who’d seen the singer perform inside the basketball gym at Anniston’s Saks High School. “She was like, ‘This girl’s going to be a big star. You should listen to her,’” says Hunley, then a Huntsville High student and now a physical therapist residing in Birmingham. Rebecca soon became a big fan. Particularly of “Tim McGraw,” Swift’s lead single expertly crafted from specific details and universal emotions. The entire “Taylor Swift” album was strikingly advanced for an artist who, when it was recorded, wasn’t old enough to legally watch an R-rated movie like “Wedding Crashers” unaccompanied by an adult.

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File photo of Taylor Swift performing at Huntsville's Big Spring Jam in 2007

Onstage in Huntsville that night in 2007, Swift wore an off-white dress with silvery embroidering and a necklace with a heart-shaped pendant. She brandished a custom Taylor-brand acoustic guitar with her name inlaid into the fretboard, and sang into a headset-style microphone. A far cry from the spectacular production on later tours, Swift and her band performed with just their instruments and standard festival lighting, with headliner LeAnn Rimes’ covered-up backline visible behind them.

Kimrey Hunley attended Swift’s Big Spring Jam show with younger sister Rachel Kimrey Morrow, who now lives in Baton Rouge and works as a chemical engineer. “I remember everyone screaming the lyrics to her songs the whole time,” Rachel says. “I think I tried to video it with my camera and you couldn’t hear her at all because so many people were screaming around you.” Rebecca adds the Swift, “sounded just as great in person as she did on the radio.”

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Courtesy photo of Rachel Kimrey Morrow with Taylor Swift at Big Spring Jam 2007

Not only did the Kimrey sisters and Martin get to watch their hero perform that night, they also met her beforehand. The singer’s backstage meet-and-greet was supposed to take place underneath a white and red tent, but since it was a nice night Swift asked if it could be held outside the tent instead. During the meet-and-great, for which Swift was not compensated, the singer/songwriter wore a black dress and little makeup besides eyeliner and mascara. She also made the kind of personal impression that stays with fans for life.

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Courtesy photo of Rebecca Kimrey Hunley with Taylor Swift at Big Spring Jam 2007

“There were about 10 people ahead of us in line,” Rebecca says. “The way Taylor was responding to the people, so friendly and giving them hugs and everything, we thought she knew them. By the time we got up there, maybe 15 minutes later, she treated us the exact same way. She gave us a hug and was so excited we were there, and complimented us on what we were wearing and asked us questions about our life.” In 2018, Rebecca’s listening tastes include radio-country acts like Sam Hunt, Little Big Town and Lady Antebellum. While she was “concerned” when Swift “transitioned to the more pop stuff” musically, she says “I still enjoy it. I kind of root for her. Even to this day I still tell people if they say something bad about Taylor, ‘Y’all I’ve met her and she treated me like I was her best friend.'"

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File photo of Taylor Swift performing at Huntsville's Big Spring Jam in 2007

Rachel recalls Swift asking her at the meet-and-greet why the festival was called Big Spring Jam since it took place during fall - a logical question for a young visitor not familiar with nearby Big Spring Park. “She was super nice,” Rachel says. “And it was definitely really cool that we saw her early on. I just remember thinking she was so tall - I think she was like five-10, but I’m five-four so I think everybody’s tall.”

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Courtesy photo of Julia Whisenant Martin with Taylor Swift at Big Spring Jam 2007

Martin adds, “Honestly I can’t remember as much about the show, I mainly remember about meeting her. She seemed really down-to -earth, like I knew she would be.” Jennings has witnessed many artists go through the motions at meet-and-greets, but says Swift was different: “She was very accommodating to her fans. You could tell she was relating to them and wanted them to remember the experience.” After meeting Swift, the Kimrey sisters watched the concert from near the front of the stage. Martin worked her way to the back of the audience to meet up with her mom.

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Martin remains a big fan to this day, having purchased all Swift’s albums, with the curious exception of 2014 pop masterpiece “1989.” “She still makes songs about what she wrote about back then, it’s just her style changed,” Martin says. As a fan hooked by the early material though, she was saddened to hear lyrics to 2017 hit “Look What You Made Me Do” about “the old Taylor” being “dead.” Martin now resides in Oklahoma with her husband who’s stationed at Fort Sill. Asked if she’s planning to attend any of Swift’s stadium concerts this year, Martin says, “I’d love to, but we don’t have the money.” Alas, there’s the rub when your favorite new act blooms into the world’s biggest pop star. Sunday tickets for Big Spring Jam 2007 were $25 or $45 for the whole three-day festival. The nosebleed seats for Swift’s upcoming stadium tour in support of “Reputation” start around $150, plus service fees.

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Most of the 100 or fans at the Swift meet-and-greet were there as contest winners. The Kimrey sisters and Martin gained access thanks to a favor from David Milly, who ran Theatrical Lighting Systems, the Huntsville company that in addition to Big Spring Jam worked with acts like Jimmy Buffett, Johnny Cash and Alabama. Milly is Martin’s uncle and friends with the Kimreys’ parents. In January 2008, Swift went on tour with country singer/guitar hotshot Brad Paisley, another TLS client. During tour rehearsals in Chattanooga, Milly sat with Paisley’s manager as they watched Swift practice her show. “Here comes Taylor Swift in her skirt and cowboy boots by herself onstage, and she just owned the whole building,” says Milly, now retired and living in Orange Beach. “She just had that stage presence. You can’t train that - you’ve just got to have it or you don’t.”

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Jennings was similarly impressed with Swift at Big Spring Jam. The festival's other performers that year included Joan Jett, Los Lonely Boys, The Commodores and then-rising folk-rockers Avett Brothers. "I think the level of what happened to her since is somewhat surprising," says Jennings, who began promoting concerts by acts like Bon Jovi in the '80s. "But the fact that she's a superstar, you could see it that night. She's a very, very talented person. And even early-on she was very polished." Swift would return to Huntsville in 2008 for an outdoor country concert at Redstone Arsenal also featuring singer Kellie Pickler. But, like so many other major stars in this era who stick to larger markets almost exclusively, Swift hasn't performed here since. (The "Reputation" tour hits Nashville's Nissan Stadium 7 p.m. Aug. 25.)

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Rolling Stone writer Rob Sheffield first heard Swift's music in the summer of 2007. At the time, Sheffield had a ritual where he'd eat lunch while watching CW Network reruns of "Clueless" and "What I Like About You." During one such lunchbreak, the CW happened to broadcast Swift's "Our Song" music video between those sitcoms. "I was in the kitchen making a grilled cheese sandwich and totally transfixed by the song," Sheffield recalls now, via phone from his Brooklyn, N.Y. home. "That chorus just floored me. I googled to see who the songwriter was - I was shocked it was the same person who sang it, which was so unusual for country hits in that era. I had no idea who 'Taylor Swift' was but I was already wondering if this brilliant song was some kind of fluke. As it turns out, the girl was just getting started."

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For Rolling Stone, Sheffield writes eloquently about subjects ranging from Steely Dan, Prince and Anita Pallenberg to "Stranger Things," the Emmys and Mary Tyler Moore. All done with wit, heart and lightning. He's currently penning a bonus chapter for the June 19 paperback edition of his award-winning 2017 book "Dreaming the Beatles," perhaps the most inspired tome yet about the Fab Four. His earlier music/memoir hybrids like "Love Is a Mix Tape" and "Turn Around Bright Eyes" are now pop-culture classics. Although he can breakdown vaunted fringe acts like The Smith with the best, Sheffield's greatest gift may be his ability to describe the brilliance of everyday pop. Last fall in advance of Swift's hotly anticipated sixth studio album "Reputation," he ranked all of Swift's previous songs for Rolling Stone, the clever insights therein generating copious LOLs. The list was recently updated to include "Reputation" tracks. "Our Song," at number 13, is the highest-ranking tune from Swift's 2006 LP on Sheffield's rankings, with stirring "Red" album piano-ballad "All Too Well" at number one.

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“You go back and listen to it now,” Sheffield says of the debut album, “and all the seeds of greatness are already there. She was going to make a great country record, and yet with all the other strains of music that she’s already working in, you can already hear that she’s a pop classicist. A song that cracks me up is ‘Should’ve Said No.’ That’s not a very country song. To me it sounds incredibly like an Oasis song - it’s definitely got the British mod feeling to it. From the very beginning, she wanted to be a country singer but with an unbelievably big appetite for the whole realm of pop music and really wanting to take inspiration from every corner of pop music history.” In hindsight, a Southern accent is much more prevalent on Swift's 2006 LP vocals, too.

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Sheffield’s favorite Swift album is 2012’s “Red.” A lifelong Clash fan, he says this is probably because it’s her most “rock” LP to date, yet he also loves the title track’s disco-banjo alchemy. He first saw Swift perform live on the singer’s “Speak Now” tour. But it was a “1989” show at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium that convinced him that she was operating in rare stratosphere. “As a performer she has that unique ability to make everyone in the audience feel seen,” Sheffield says. “She really communicates that in a way Bruce Springsteen does. It’s like seeing The Replacements in a way. I saw an afternoon all-ages hard-core Replacements show in Rhode Island when I was a teenager, and it was a thing where I felt like the guy onstage was reading my mind and reading my own diary back to me. And it’s funny all these years later, I can still have that feeling listening to a Taylor Swift song.”

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I tell Sheffield that’s pretty much how fans interviewed for this story described Swift’s effect on them as teenage girls. How personal, how relatable her songs were for them. “It’s funny because I feel that way about those songs too, and I’m three times as old as she was when she wrote them,” Sheffield says with a chuckle. “That song ‘Tied Together With a Smile,’ that’s a feeling she really captures that’s not restricted to teenagers. She was already extraordinarily accomplished as a songwriter at that point. I love ‘Reputation’ and all the pop stuff and production that she does on that album. People understandably get distracted by what a celebrity she is, but just in the songwriting she is such a character. Any time she wants to, she can just sit down with the guitar and write a song that’s just unlike what anybody else does.” Fans who've been there since Swift's early days will be listening. Still hanging on every word.

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File/Courtesy Jason Thrasher

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