Every family has its soundtrack. For siblings David Bingaman and Jennie Hayes Kurtz, better known as Brother and The Hayes, that soundtrack was messy and sprawling—big band jazz and swing from their mother, seventies rock and outlaw country from their father, and more than a little nineties Nashville radio echoing down the hall. What started as a jumble of records on the living room floor turned into the backbone of a partnership that, years later, is producing some of the most heartfelt Americana coming out of Tennessee.
Their single, Oh Glory (released February 28, 2025), captures that strange balance between doubt and joy, noise and clarity. It’s a hymn for anyone who’s ever felt buried under the weight of social media pressure, endless comparisons, or just the heaviness of a culture that shouts louder than it listens.
Jennie Hayes wrote the song one night after deciding not to go to a party. Instead, she sat at home stewing about all the little things—Instagram feeds, consumerist expectations, that creeping sense that everyone else is doing it better. Out of that quiet came lyrics inspired by Reverend Gary Davis’s Oh Glory, How Happy I Am. She reshaped the idea into something both personal and modern: not a copy, not even a cover, but a new piece that tips its hat to gospel tradition while asking what joy really looks like now.
The sound is warm but restless. David’s guitar lays down a steady pulse, almost like a heartbeat. Jennie Hayes’s voice enters tender, then climbs into something stronger, almost defiant. By the time the gospel choir swells behind her in the chorus, the track feels less like a studio recording and more like a community shouting its way through struggle. It’s not polished pop—it’s raw in the best way, a reminder that music doesn’t have to be perfect to be powerful.
Their journey to this point wasn’t a straight shot. Both siblings went to the University of Arkansas, fell in love with folk and songwriting, and then landed in Nashville with nothing but day jobs and late-night gigs. Jennie Hayes found work at the Country Music Hall of Fame, first handling exhibits and artifacts, then moving into education, where she wrote songwriting lessons for kids and guided school tours. David spent nights at the Bluebird Café, serving drinks, watching world-class writers play inches away, sneaking his sister in when he could. Between the Hall of Fame and the Bluebird, they picked up more than paychecks—they absorbed a city’s worth of stories and structure.
By 2017, they couldn’t ignore the pull anymore. Brother and The Hayes officially launched, and from the start, their music felt like lived experience: folk and blues stitched together with traditional country and a little rock grit. They recorded Tennessee Nights with producer Bill Reynolds, followed by two EPs, The Dead End and Another Strange Time. Along the way they linked with engineer Diana Walsh, who helped sharpen their sound without sanding off its edges.
But 2024 tested them in ways no studio ever could. Their father, the man who first told Jennie Hayes she could be a singer and handed David his first guitar, died suddenly from a stroke. His absence runs like an undercurrent through their latest songs. Oh Glory isn’t directly about him, but when you hear the ache in Jennie Hayes’s delivery, it’s impossible not to feel his presence. The track becomes both a tribute and a release: grief transformed into music that lifts instead of sinks.
David now lives in Chattanooga, sketching posters, climbing rocks, and still strumming late into the night. Jennie Hayes remains in Nashville, juggling her work with the Hall of Fame’s Words and Music program and her role as host of songwriter showcases. Their paths aren’t identical, but whenever they step on stage together, the bond is obvious. They laugh, they tease, they share glances that only siblings can. And that closeness pours out into the audience, pulling listeners into the family circle.
Oh Glory stands as the first taste of their album In Good Company, which was also dropped on February 28. If the single is any indication, the record leans into the themes that define them: resilience, the beauty of process, and the joy of creating even in the face of loss. It’s not a flashy record meant to chase charts—it’s music meant to linger, to remind you of what matters when the lights go down and the screens go dark.
The song’s message is simple enough: joy isn’t in the party you skipped or the possessions you couldn’t afford. It’s in the act of making, of working, of growing. “Oh glory” becomes less a religious refrain and more a sigh of relief—a recognition that happiness isn’t found in perfection but in process.
Brother and The Hayes may not be household names yet, but Oh Glory shows exactly why they should be. It’s honest, rooted in real experience, and delivered with a sincerity that’s hard to fake. You don’t just hear the song; you feel the room it came from, the living room dance parties of their childhood, the empty seat at the table their father left behind, the long nights in Nashville wondering if the grind was worth it.
And when the choir kicks in, you believe them.
