Ben Nichols w/ Cory Branan

Ben Nichols is best known as the frontman and songwriter for the long-running Memphis rock band Lucero. Now 50, he’s releasing one of his most personal works yet: a rare solo album titled In the Heart of the Mountain.

Nichols, originally from Arkansas, studied history before moving to Tennessee and founding Lucero in 1998. Since then, the band has released 12 studio albums and toured relentlessly across the U.S. and abroad. In 2008, he began playing solo acoustic shows, including appearances on Chuck Ragan’s original Revival Tour, and released his first solo project, The Last Pale Light in the West — a seven-song concept album inspired by Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian. That album’s title track was featured in The Walking Dead (season 4, episode 6), and a vinyl copy is housed with the Cormac McCarthy Papers at Texas State University.

Now, 16 years later, Nichols returns with In the Heart of the Mountain, a deeply reflective and lyrically rich album. Though not a concept record, the song titles read like a poem, tracing a journey through memory, myth, and the American South.