Ryan Hurd cultivated a strong presence in country music circles through his songwriting talents long before emerging as a recording artist in 2017. Tracks he authored reached Lady Antebellum, Rascal Flatts, Florida Georgia Line, and Blake Shelton. His catalog work, paired with his marriage to Maren Morris, heightened his visibility ahead of “To a T,” which became his first hit single. A string of EPs followed into the next decade and prepared the ground for Pelago, his 2021 full-length debut that mixed melodic elements and included the hit duet “Chasing After You” with Morris. The anthemic “Midwest Rock & Roll” opened a new album cycle for Hurd upon its 2024 release.
Raised in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Hurd moved to Nashville intent on entering the country industry. He first operated behind the scenes, building credibility as a songwriter until Blake Shelton drove “Lonely Tonight” to the top of Billboard’s Country Airplay chart in 2014. Songwriting also brought personal rewards when Hurd met Maren Morris during their collaboration on a Tim McGraw song; the pair wed in 2018.
Leveraging his songwriting accomplishments, Hurd shifted into performing. The Panorama EP arrived in 2015 and drew initial media notice. A 2016 contract with RCA Nashville yielded a self-titled EP in 2017, led by the single “We Do Us.”
“Love in a Bar” marked Hurd’s first Country Airplay entry when it reached number 50 in 2017. The next year “To a T” rose to number 42 on Country Airplay and number 40 on the overall Country chart. “Her Name Was Summer” surfaced in June 2019, followed by the EPs Panorama and Platonic. EOM arrived next, centered on the 2020 single “Every Other Memory.” Early in 2021 the duet “Chasing After You” with Morris climbed to number four on Country Airplay and served as the lead single for Pelago, which appeared that October and peaked at number 11 on Billboard’s Country charts.
Hurd and Morris separated in October 2023, and their divorce was finalized in January 2024. March 2024 brought “Midwest Rock & Roll,” his first new music since Pelago, followed soon after by the ballad “Go to Bed Sober,” a duet with Sasha Alex Sloan.
