Chicken Shack
Unlucky Boy

After the escapades with the "Imagination Lady" trio, Stan Webb decides to sort things out a bit with his Chicken Shack, and here comes "Unlucky Boy," a 1973 album with an expanded trio lineup. Bob Daisley replaces John Glascock on bass and Paul Hancox stays behind the drums, expanded because there are collaborations with Tony Ashton on piano and Chris Mercer on sax.

The album opens in full Webb style, "You know Could Be Right," a slow and enveloping rock blues also chosen as a single from the album, a personal favorite of mine. Right away, you notice the less raw sound, although still quite wild compared to the previous work, with harmonic solutions and studio-like arrangements, if they can be defined that way, and with these characteristics, we move to "Revelation", a minor-key blues, with the color of Mercer’s sax dueting with Webb's guitar, with his typical surges.

It's the turn of "Prudence's Party," an instrumental led by the melodic line of Stan's guitar supported by Ashton's piano in the foreground. "Too Late to Cry" is a brief solo number by Stan, with country/blues flavors from the past, as if to break the robust sound of the album. "Stan The Man" is almost an anthem where our guy’s guitar skills are highlighted in an elegant and substantial manner.

Side B opens with "Unlucky Boy," another key track of the entire album (a re-adaptation of the original "Unlucky Girl" by Big Mama Thornton), with sax and guitar in the spotlight, rock blues at its best, I would say. After the more intimate and elegant interlude of "As Time Goes Passing By," arranged with a string section, the album's closure is characterized by a blues jam with echoes of 70's rock, with Ashton's piano prominently followed by "He knows the Rules," a track written by Jimmy McCracklin and reinterpreted by Stan with a return to the more classic sound of the beginnings.

After this work, Stan released a live album which marked the end of the second phase of Chicken Shack.