It’s difficult not to be charmed by Lucero. If the works by and about this Tennessee quartet have been painting a true-to-life portrait, the amicable bunch is likely to both drink and play until the bar closes, then squeeze in a bit more time for each afterwards. While shades of ’80s college rock and Springsteenesque heartland rock glimmer in Lucero, its sound is deepest in debt to its fabled hometown of Memphis. Bluff City’s homegrown rockabilly, outlaw country and Americana all comprise the foundation these blue-collar stalwarts use to build something fresh and uncommon. Alternately wistful and restless, Lucero’s ambling rhythms are anchored in front man Ben Nichols’s venerable whiskey-worn drawl. As a man who lovingly croons about being “just another Southern boy who dreams of nights in NYC,” he tends to write exclusively about subjects he knows intimately. In a 2005 documentary about his band, Nichols candidly characterized his discography as “60 songs about girls and two about my grandfather.” With Lucero’s eighth album due this fall, will anything change? “This time, there’s one song about my mom,” he says. “The rest are about girls.”
This article appears in May 7-13, 2009.