Dove Award-winning singer/songwriter and worship leader Christy Nockels started out as part of Sons & Daughters and Watermark before beginning a successful solo career in the late 2000s. From her 2009 debut, Life Light Up, she steadily climbed the charts and maintained a strong presence on both the secular and Christian scenes with acclaimed efforts like Let It Be Jesus (2015) and This Is the Hour (2023).

Born Christy Lynette Hill in Ft. Worth, Texas and raised in Oklahoma, the daughter of a pastor and a piano teacher. She met her future husband and musical collaborator Nathan Nockels in 1993 at a Christian artists seminar. The two married in 1995 and began writing the songs that would make up their debut album, Holy Roar, recorded with longtime friends Charlie and Kimber Hall and released under the billing Sons & Daughters.

Upon relocating back to Texas, the duo was championed and eventually signed by Rocketown Records, a small label owned by Grammy Award-winning CCM artist Michael W. Smith. They relocated again to Nashville in 1998 and formed the highly successful Watermark, releasing five albums that resulted in both significant chart success and a handful of Dove Awards. In 2009, Christy launched a solo career with her debut album, Life Light Up, on Six Steps Records. Into the Glorious, her follow-up, arrived in 2012 and reached number two on Billboard's Christian Albums chart. After 2015's live offering Let It Be Jesus, Christy returned to the studio to record her third album, The Thrill of Hope, which was released on the Nockels' own imprint, Keepers Branch Records. In 2017 she delivered the full-length Be Held: Lullabies for the Beloved, featuring songs that originated as lullabies sung to her own children. An instrumental version landed in 2018, while a "Renewed" iteration of The Thrill of Hope was issued the following year. A five-year hiatus preceded the arrival of her next studio effort. Released in 2023, This Is the Hour saw Nockels deliver a life-affirming 14-song set that included the CCM hits "Valor," "Home," and "Come Magnify." ~ James Christopher Monger