Learning How to Listen and Reset

The latest album from Redmond musician Casey Hurt is an intimate portrait of the past decade involving life-changing experiences. His nephew passed away in a car crash 10 years ago. His album, “Back to the Start” dropped Oct. 12, the anniversary of his nephew’s death. It’s Hurt’s fourth solo album, and the first one released in 13 years.

“It was a memorandum to my family and something we all went through. But I had gone through a divorce. I moved from Los Angeles to New York to all over the country and back and ended up in Redmond with my family. Here, I fell in love. I got married…we have a son,” Hurt explains. His wife, Lora Hurt, is also a songwriter and sings in one of the tracks on the new album.

Hurt says his life experiences led him to write songs differently with honesty being at the forefront. He describes “Back to the Start” as 13 tracks, one story.

“I don’t think it’s necessarily a songwriter’s job to tell people how to live. I think it’s their job to tell people how they’ve lived and what they’ve experienced and let the listener interpret for themselves,” Hurt told the Source. He describes his sound as a mix of Americana, folk and blues.

Hurts website lists notable moments in his music career, with songs featured on television programs such as “Criminal Minds,” “Pretty Little Liars” and “One Tree Hill.” He’s also been active in theater, serving as music director for productions at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, American Conservatory Theater and Berkeley Repertory Theater.

Casey Hurt has a band with his father and other family members. Credit: Casey Hurt

Hurt performs at local venues, sometimes with a family band which includes his father. He says music spans many generations in his family. “My great grandfather used to play country music on the radio during the Great Depression, and he was kind of the founder of the whole thing and really started playing. He taught my dad, then passed it down to me and my nephew and our son. He teaches our son every week,” Hurt says. “They don’t call it lessons, they call it two guys hanging out, but it’s them just working on all things music. Right now, they’re soldering some pedals together in preparation for learning how to build a guitar.”

Lora Hurt is also a musician. Credit: Casey Hurt

In December, he and Lora are flying to Akron, Ohio to perform for an event at the LeBron James Family Foundation and participate in leading a choir. That foundation supports educational programs in LeBron’s hometown. Hurt says one of his earlier songs was the bridge that got him involved.

“You just don’t ever know where they’re going to turn up. And one of my songs founds its way to the community in the LeBron James Foundation, and they use that song as kind of like their mantra for raising up the work they do in Akron,” Hurt explains.

When he’s not performing or producing music, Hurt and his wife run the Art & Music store on SW 5^th in downtown Redmond, which they took over after Hurt’s parents retired. The store sells musical instruments, parts and fine arts supplies. Hurt even put a recording studio in the back.

Casey Hurt and his wife, Lora, run the Art & Music store. Credit: Nic Moye

The Art & Music store sells musical instruments, parts and fine arts supplies. There is a recording studio in the rear. Credit: Nic Moye

“It’s so neat to have people come in and buy strings because they’re like ‘I have a gig tonight or I have a gig this weekend,’ and we get to hear about that. It’s such a neat opportunity to have so many musicians that are being paid to perform live,” Hurt says. “It’s a lot of really young, hungry musicians and then this subset of older musicians who are really hungry to keep playing.”

The music scene in Redmond has grown in recent years, attracting big names to events like the FareWell Festival. “We’ve had the privilege of seeing a lot of artists travel through on tour and stop in and get stuff from us,” Hurt says. “When Sturgill Simpson was in town, we got to help his guitar tech with some setup stuff for things they forgot when they were on the road. So it’s really, all of a sudden, become this hub. For a long time it was kind of the sister city to Bend, you know, a kind of quiet town, but all of a sudden things have popped with the Blacksmith and Duffy’s and the community in Brasada and Testimony and The Vault.”

When Hurt reflects on his latest album, he says he’s partial to the song “Sturdy Lovers.”

“It’s about learning how to understand each other and communicate with each other… Sometimes we work so hard to try to understand each other and hear each other that we get in each other’s way and, you know, learning how to reset that.”

This article appears in the Source October 30, 2025.