01	Baby's Got Me Crying						02:34
	02	The Right Way Is My Way						02:33
	03	Get Like You Used To Be						03:49
	04	Pony And Trap						03:20
	05	Tell Me						04:50
	06	A Woman Is The Blues						03:28
	07	I Wanna See My Baby						03:53
	08	Remington Ride						03:02
	09	Fishing In Your River						04:40
	10	Mean Old World						03:44
	11	Sweet Sixteen						06:23

O.K. Ken?
Date of Release 1969

This was Chicken Shack's most popular album, making the British Top Ten. If you're looking for relics of the British Blues Boom, however, you'd be much better off with Ten Years After, to say nothing of legitimate artists such as Fleetwood Mac and John Mayall. British blues at its best could be exciting (if usually derivative), but it's difficult to fathom how this relentlessly plodding, monotonous effort met with such success. Stan Webb took most of the songwriting and vocal chores, emulating the slow-burning Chicago boogie with little skill or subtlety (though he wasn't a bad guitarist). Christine Perfect did write and sing a few songs, but these unfortunately found both her compositional and vocal chops at a most callow stage of development. To nail the coffin, most of the songs were preceded by excruciating comic dialog that made Cheech & Chong sound sophisticated in comparison. - Richie Unterberger


Big Walter Horton - Harmonica
John Almond - Saxophone
Christine McVie - Keyboards, Vocals
Mike Vernon - Producer
Kenneth Williams - Voices
Stan Webb - Guitar, Vocals, Voices
Bud Beadle - Saxophone, Sax (Alto), Sax (Baritone)
Dave Bidwell - Drums
Don Fey - Saxophone, Tenor (Vocal)
Hugh Green - Voices
Steve Gregory - Saxophone, Tenor (Vocal)
Roderick M Lee - Trumpet
M.C. - Sound Effects
Terry Noonan - Trumpet
John Peel - Voices
Mike Ross - Engineer
Andy Silvester - Bass
Neil Slaven - Liner Notes
Andy Sylvester - Bass
Max Wall - Voices
Christine Perfect - Piano, Vocals
Terence Ibbott - Design, Photography
Johnny Almond - Trombone
Simmonds Harry Chorale - Sound Effects
Richard Vernon - Coordination
Chris Wood - Voices
Harold Wilson - Voices

1969 CD BGO 186
1969 LP Blue Horizon BH-7705
1994 CD BGO 186


Chicken Shack

Formed 1966 in Birmingham, England
Disbanded 1973

Group Members Christine McVie Stan Webb Dave Bidwell Paul Hancox Paul Raymond Andy Sylvester

Styles British Blues, Blues-Rock

This British blues-rock group is remembered mostly for their keyboard player, Christine Perfect, who would join Fleetwood Mac after marrying John McVie and changing her last name. Although they were one of the more pedestrian acts of the British blues boom, Chicken Shack was quite popular for a time in the late '60s, placing two albums in the British Top 20. The frontperson of Chicken was not Perfect/McVie, but guitarist Stan Webb, who would excite British audiences by entering the crowds at performances, courtesy of his 100-meter-long guitar lead. They were signed to Mike Vernon's Blue Horizon label, a British blues pillar that had its biggest success with early Fleetwood Mac.
Chicken Shack was actually not far behind Mac in popularity in the late '60s, purveying a more traditional brand of Chicago blues, heavily influenced by Freddie King. Although Webb took most of the songwriting and vocal duties, Christine Perfect also chipped in with occasional compositions and lead singing. In fact, she sang lead on their only British Top 20 single, "I'd Rather Go Blind" (1969). But around that time, she quit the music business to marry John McVie and become a housewife, although, as the world knows, that didn't last too long. Chicken Shack never recovered from Christine's loss, commercially or musically. Stan Webb kept Chicken Shack going, with a revolving door of other musicians, all the way into the 1980s, though he briefly disbanded the group to join Savoy Brown for a while in the mid-'70s. - Richie Unterberger




1968 40 Blue Fingers, Freshly Packed and Ready to... Epic
1969 O.K. Ken? BGO
1969 100 Ton Chicken Blue Horizon
1970 Accept Chicken Shack Blue Horizon
1972 Imagination Lady Indigo
1973 Unlucky Boy London
1974 Goodbye [Live] Nova
1977 Double Deram
1977 Stan the Man Nova
1978 The Creeper WEA
1978 That's the Way We Are Shark
1979 Chicken Shack Gull
1980 In the Can Epic
1981 Roadies Concerto [live] RCA
1998 On Air [live] Strange Fruit