On his third release, Elvis the Dog (Appaloosa/I.R.D. 2002) Click further defines his soulful sound, putting his unique stamp on songs by his musical heroes (the Beatles, J.J. Cale) as well as lesser-known by local Austinites with whom he's shared a stage with over the years. A showcase for his breathtaking guitar work and soulful vocals, this collection of songs chronicles a journey through loneliness, heartache, and -- ultimately -- redemption.

Click grew up in a small town outside Indianapolis, the youngest of nine children in a working class family. One of his earliest memories is of listening to his mother play slide guitar using a butter knife while she held the guitar flat on her lap. Click first picked up his older brother's guitar when he was six and by the time he was in high school he was gigging around the area in his older sister's country band, covering tunes by Buck Owens, Johnny Cash, and Willie Nelson at VFW halls and other local venues.

During the '80s Click honed his skills in cover bands throughout the Midwest before discovering a love of the blues. After immersing himself in the musical traditions of Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, and other giants of southern blues, Click felt the pull of the Austin scene, which was bursting with the energy of Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eric Johnson and the Fabulous Thunderbirds. Not long after arriving in Austin, Click put together a three-piece blues-rock outfit known as Danny and the Hurricanes, which quickly built a devoted local following.

In 1998 Click released his first record, Forty Miles (DogStar), a roots-inflected tribute to the tribulations of heartland America. Featuring ten songs penned by Click, Forty Miles received serious airplay on more than 100 stations and garnered Click rave reviews in the Austin Chronicle and other newspapers. Vintage Guitar magazine opined: "Click plays like a man possessed. His slide playing gives me chills." The video for the title track played in heavy rotation on the Austin Music Network and all major affiliates.

Click followed up the success of Forty Miles with Night of the Living Guitars (Appaloosa/I.R.D 2000) which successfully captured the searing intensity of his live shows. Recorded in and around Austin, Night of the Living Guitars showcases Click's incendiary solos and eerily beautiful slide. A favorite in Europe, Click has toured Italy, Switzerland, and England in recent years.

Click's guitar prowess did not go unnoticed, and in 2000 popular Texas roots rocker Jimmy LaFave asked Click to join his band as lead guitarist. With LaFave Click played more than 200 shows a year to audiences that often numbered in the thousands. A favorite on the festival circuit, LaFave and band have headlined Strawberry, Kate Wolf, Falconridge, and Kerrville, among others. Critics began to single out Click's playing as a highlight of LaFave's shows, and guitar fans flocked the stage afterward to snap up Click's solo CDs. In 2004 Click and his band headlined festivals in Switzerland, Fiji and New Zealand playing to thousands of people.

Recorded between Dec 2001 and May 2002 in his home studio, Elvis the Dog finds Click in top form, surrounded by stellar musicians and serving up a heartfelt collection of songs of struggle and redemption. From the passionate intensity of the opening track, "Killing Fields," to the playful Beatles cover "I've Got a Feeling" (featuring Jimmy LaFave on the "Lennon vocal"), Elvis the Dog leads us seamlessly through a range of emotions that closely follows the highs and lows of life itself. There's the roiling anger of Billy Harvey's "Love at War," the poignancy of J.J. Cale's "Tijuana" (featuring a gorgeous guitar solo by Andrew Hardin) and the haunting instrumental title track that closes the album. Dedicated to the memory of Click's beloved dog Elvis, this record evokes both a profound sense of loss and the wonder of transformation. As Click says in the liner notes, "as I was recording this, I realized that it was not just for Elvis the dog, but it was also for all the ones we have ever loved and lost." Take a few minutes to listen to the stunning purity of Click's slide intro to "Dust on the Bible" and you can't help but feel a deep appreciation for life's equal doses of pain and beauty. Click explains his eclectic song choices with the simple comment: "These are songs that really deserve to be heard."

Amen to that.