Chicken Shack

One of the many British band who rode the blues boom that hit that country in the late 1960s, Chicken Shack was led by guitarist and singer Stan Webb. The group began to take shape in the middle of the decade with drummer Alan Morley and bass player Andy Silvester. The secret of their success came in 1967 when they brough aboard singer and keyboard player Christine Perfect. It was this line-up that recorded the group’s most prominent album, 1968’s 40 Blue Fingers, Freshly Packed and Ready to Serve, a collection of 10 songs that consisted primarily of traditionalist covers of such blues legends as Freddie King and B. B. King. Perfect sang the lead on the band’s biggest single, the number 14 hit “I’d Rather Go Blind” in 1969, and the music magazine Melody Maker crowned her the best female vocalist in the UK. This roster of Chicken Shack would come to an end in 1969 when prefect gave up a career in music to marry esteemed musician John McVie, the bassist in Fleetwood Mac. She would take his name, and eventually join that band. Webb went through over 30 changes in sidemen, keeping the Chicken Shack name going for over fifty years, but never coming close to the chart success they had with Perfect.