Since moving to the North Bay from Austin, Texas, over a decade ago, guitarist and songwriter Danny Click has made a name in the local scene with his outfit, Danny Click & the Hell Yeahs! delivering a sizzling countrified Americana that’s garnered them accolades in the Bay Area and beyond.
“People must like what we’re doing,” says Click. “It’s nice to have people come to shows.” A while back, he says, someone likened their shows to going to church, “so I started calling it the electric church.”
This month, Click unplugs and shows off a different side of his music when he unveils a new live album,
Dannny Click & the Americana Orchestra: Live at 142, featuring a string quartet backing his band in an all-acoustic recording.
“I always wanted to play with a string quartet,” Click says. “I wanted to do something different than what we usually do.”
The album was recorded nearly four years ago at Mill Valley’s Throckmorton Theatre, though the project took a backseat when Click had the opportunity to work with legendary producer Jim Scott (Tom Petty, the Rolling Stones, Wilco) to record a studio album.
“We said, ‘Stop the presses! We got the call from Jim and we have to go do this,'” says Click.
That recording became Holding Up the Sun, released in 2015 to universal acclaim. Click spent the next two years touring and playing in support of the album, almost forgetting about his Americana Orchestra until recently.
After finishing the mixing and mastering process last year, Click is ready to share the new live album when he performs a record-release show on May 4, back where it all began at Throckmorton Theatre in Mill Valley.
On the new album’s 10 live tracks and one bonus studio track, Click reworks some of his most popular tunes, like the Southern rocker “We Are the People” and the soulful “Life Is a Good Place.” He also adapts classics like Bob Dylan’s “Girl from the North Country” and Tom Petty’s “You and I Will Meet Again.”
Live at 142 has plenty of lush, beautifully melodic moments of music that may surprise Click’s fans. Even Click admits he got chills while playing with the string quartet.
“Having those intimate strings right there in my ear while I sang these songs almost choked me up,” he says. “It was kind of like being in heaven for a little bit.”
