Some people are born to make music. It’s just something in the blood. Where we hear wind, they hear strings. Where we hear a passing train, they hear rhythm – the beginning of a new song. Conversations yield lyrics and melodies are plucked out of thin air. And as it often goes when someone has the gift, it may seem too easy for them to take it seriously. It is second-nature. It is like breathing. Musicians don’t always know what they are and what they can do…until they do it.
Songwriter and vocalist Sierra Hurtt is the daughter of award-winning, writer/producer Phil Hurtt. At a young age, she was surrounded by the music of her father and his peers – Gamble and Huff, Bunny Sigler and Richie Rome — but Hurtt never intended to follow in her father’s footsteps. Despite teaching herself piano at only 3, and starting her recording career at the tender age of 4, theater was her passion and her formative years were spent performing various roles in school. She auditioned for every show at every school she attended, and studied classical theater while in college in Maryland. As an actress, she received glowing reviews for her performances in Shakespeare, Euripides, Thornton, Ibsen and Wilde, and reluctantly appeared in a number of musicals.
After returning home from a brief residency in London, where she found herself immersed in London’s music community, she met guitarist Ross Landy and started a band . As Euclid Street, they performed all over the Philadelphia region, held music showcases for new artists (Amos Lee, Cassendre Xavier, Andrew Lipke, Julia Othmer, Devin Greenwood, Blivit, and others) and recorded two unreleased demos, as well as the beginnings of a studio album. They were featured performers at Philadelphia’s renown music showcase The Black Lily, and shared the bill with Erykah Badu, an up-and-coming Jazmine Sullivan and others.
Hurtt also frequently collaborated with Paul Edwards (djpe), most notably on his Zenapolae Records release To Six Billion, featuring the track Burn and a remix of Euclid Street’s My Friend, featured on Anthropologie Volume 6. Hurtt and Edwards later formed the unit Love 15, recording tracks for various projects including their striking version of Tea in the Sahara for Realize Records’ S.O.S – A tribute to the Police.
After more than 7 years with Euclid Street, Hurtt walked away from music in 2005, dismayed by the lack of local support. Three months later, her father brought her in on a project, A Soulful Tale of Two Cities, for his Soul Renaissance Records. Her role was strictly behind-the-scenes, but one afternoon session performing backing vocals for the CD that featured George Clinton, Barbara Mason, Bunny Sigler, Freda Payne and Ollie Woodson (among others) brought things full-circle.
In late 2007, legendary engineer Gene Leone, leaked a copy of Euclid Street’s unreleased demo for Letting Go to UK radio. Hurtt released the song as a single on Christmas day of that same year. She performed for the first time as a solo artist in the UK in April of 2008, both live and on-air.
She finally returned to the studio in January of 2009 to complete her solo debut, 8 or 80, due out in the late Spring. Aided by the help of long-time friends, including engineering virtuoso Michael Richelle, seasoned, session musician Chuck Treece, R&B chanteuses Gabrielle Hurtt and Vivian Green, and musical chameleon Greenwood, Hurtt is poised to fulfill her legacy as a child of music.