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Rating: Another serious gap in this site that absolutely needed to be filled was the lack of a contribution to the work of one of the leading bands of the '60s British Blues, Chicken Shack, who in 1968 made their long-awaited debut album for Blue Horizon, the same historic label of Fleetwood Mac and Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation.
"40 Blue Fingers Freshly Packed And Ready To Serve" represents, from an artistic point of view, the pinnacle in the career of a group originally born as a trio (with guitarist Stan Webb, bassist Andy Sylvester, and drummer Dave Bidwell), and then expanded with the inclusion of pianist and vocalist Christine Perfect (legend has it that it was producer Mike Vernon, a discoverer of the Shack and later of Ten Years After among others, who suggested her permanent inclusion); Perfect, to whom John Mayall dedicated the song "Leaping Christine" in 1967, later included in "The Hard Road", was a singer with emphatic and solemn tones, melancholic and "crying", easily recognizable from the first listen by the peculiar timbre of her elegant and composed singing, much closer to the inflections of certain "Jazz singers" than to the raw vocality of the emerging Rock-Blues; and she was a musician of innate class, an interpreter of a seductive and velvety, soft, and "gentle" piano touch (far removed is the obstinate percussiveness of pianists inspired by Rock 'n' Roll or Rhythm & Blues). At the same time, the suffering and reflective vein of the new Shack Blues found worthy expression in the voice of the leader, Stan Webb, a guitarist with predominantly "greenian" inspiration (Fleetwood Mac are certainly the ones who, stylistically, most closely resemble Our band) but also a suggestive, particular voice, close in sharpness and range to certain vocal feats of the early John Mayall (listen to "Have You Heard" from "Bluesbreakers With Eric Clapton" to grasp the relative affinities). The rhythm section is essentially entrusted to two supporting players, although it stands out for precision and a marked taste for the use of contextual variations that never overstep the mark.
The band from Stourbridge, a suburb of Birmingham, had just returned from a successful tour in Germany when they entered the studio to record this fine debut, and the cohesion created among the group members is fully appreciable in a work already significant for its measure, incisiveness, and philological reinterpretation (but by no means dryly purist) of the genre's canons; the live validity of Our band greatly contributed to the commercial success of the record in question: Webb's habit of performing among the audience (a novelty for the time) was particularly impressive, as was the innovative solution of adapting the traditional Blues matrix to jazz-influenced styles (a path later followed by many subsequent exponents of the Blues Revival, both English and otherwise). Confirming this stylistic predisposition is the addition of a small horn section in "40 Blue Fingers", enriched by two notable saxophonists: the veteran Dick Heckstall-Smith (formerly with Alexis Korner and Graham Bond, and later a member of Colosseum) and Johnny Almond, who would form the Mark-Almond duo. In particular, Heckstall-Smith's importance in deconstructing the canons of the more classic British Blues is now universally recognized and is comparable to that of a John Hiseman, often his collaborator in various productions of the time.
The class of the Shack is evident from the opening of "The Letter", sung by Webb with suffering and participation (as well as with a marked preference for the high tones of voice and the fluid cleanliness of the guitar playing), and from the subsequent "Lonesome Whistle Blues", a magnificent homage to Chicago's urban Blues, with saxophones and trumpets introducing and developing the theme; Instead, it is Christine's femininity that dominates "When The Train Comes Back", a dreary evocation of the separation between two lovers at the departure of a train, marked by ghostly and mournful piano phrases. "San Ho Zay" and "See See Baby" (the first instrumental) are two pieces drawn from Freddie King's repertoire, among the main sources of inspiration for the group; noteworthy is the rendition of "King Of The World" by John Lee Hooker, a long and funereal litany crossed by Webb's sudden guitar flashes, here intent on enhancing the more earthy side of his instrumental personality. "Webbed Feet" is another worthy showcase for the guitarist's technique, an intense and sustained electric ride in which the whole group works wonderfully well to rigorously support the soloist's unpredictable cues; the "locutory" function of the guitar in the Blues finds perfect expression here: the instrument "speaks" and tells stories with sincere emotion, replacing the leader's singing. Stan Webb's timbral originality is also in the spotlight in "First Time I Met The Blues", as well as in the closing track (though slightly monotonous and convoluted) "What You Did Last Night", while "You Ain't No Good", again entrusted to Perfect's stellar vocals, is a page of unparalleled intensity and lyricism, and perhaps represents the highest artistic moment of the entire album: a "slow" full of nocturnal atmospheres, moving throughout its entire duration without any lapse in inspiration.
It's a pity that the follow-up ("Ok Ken?", one year later) did not reach the same heights as this essential debut, and it is also a pity that after Christine's departure (who joined Fleetwood Mac and would become John McVie's wife, taking his surname), Our band's talent and credibility diminished, bogged down in overused (and mediocre) Hard-Blues stereotypes of little interest. If there is one Chicken Shack album that must be listened to with particular attention, it is undoubtedly "40 Blue Fingers", to which I assign four stars considering two factors: the importance of the group in the historical evolution of British Blues and its ability to suggest alternative and partly original paths, even within the substantial adherence to the classic (and indispensable) twelve-bar model.
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