Chicken Shack/John Stewart Import CD's

wondergirl9847 · #1 08-04-2003, 12:28 PM

My dad gets this catalog called Collector's Choice Music and he got it in the mail today. I'm flippin' through and I see Chicken Shack!! It's an import CD for $11.95. Says that it includes cuts and outtakes from 1968 to 1969 with two songs written and sung by Christine!! In case anyone's interested.

Same catalog has an Australian import of John Stewart tunes. It's called The Essential Stewart 1964-1979. 24 tracks in all for $19.95. Comes with a 16 page booklet.

www.collectorschoicemusic.com

kdemelli · #2 08-04-2003, 06:16 PM

On a similar note, there is a Chicken Shack album at the HMV in Covent Garden. It's in the vinyl section, and i was absolutely floored to see it there as I had never seen anything by them anywhere else. So i figured I'd let everyone know in case someone wanted to go grab it.

Kate

wetcamelfood · #3 08-04-2003, 06:59 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by wondergirl9847
My dad gets this catalog called Collector's Choice Music and he got it in the mail today. I'm flippin' through and I see Chicken Shack!! It's an import CD for $11.95. Says that it includes cuts and outtakes from 1968 to 1969 with two songs written and sung by Christine!! In case anyone's interested.

Same catalog has an Australian import of John Stewart tunes. It's called The Essential Stewart 1964-1979. 24 tracks in all for $19.95. Comes with a 16 page booklet.

www.collectorschoicemusic.com

WTH? When I went to the site and searched for Chicken Shack, I got three albums returned, the two that they list for 11.99 (.98, .95 or whatever) are early 70's Shack album remasters that were after Christine's time there ("Imagination lady" and "Lucky boy") the other one is a "Very best of..." for 27.99 (or .98, or .95, whatever) and they don't have a tracklisting.

Can anyone post more details about this if they have the catalog from this company that says the stuff about the outtakes etc. here? Thanks in advance.

John

wondergirl9847 · #4 08-04-2003, 10:13 PM

I forgot to post this earlier! Yeah, I think their website is just not updated yet, because in the catalog, it says new import on those CD's AND Christine DOES have two songs on the Chicken Shack one which is made up of early songs and outtakes. It's NONE of the CD's on the site, as of right now. Sorry, I didn't know it wasn't on the site until AFTER I posted this.

macfan 57 · #5 08-05-2003, 05:47 AM

Is the title of this CD, "From The Vaults"? If it is, I have it. From your description, it sounds like it. I believe it had been reissued in the U.S. this spring.

wetcamelfood · #6 08-05-2003, 06:02 AM

Ya beat me to it macfan57

I had seen Christy's posting about this on the legboard (which was a little different) and there we discovered it is in fact FTV so I'll paste in my leg board post here now just to give those here the update/info etc. :

"A-HA! Christy, I have it! You said here that it's called "From the vaults". Yep, that's on Indigo Records (a UK firm, a subsidiary of Trojan) released in 1997 and it is live stuff (not available elsewhere). It doesn't say which eras but Christine does sing lead on some (and there are more rocking tracks included like "Telling your fortune" that are obviously from latter day Shack lineups so it must be from various eras etc.). This is sorta like the Chicken Shack CD from 1992 called "On air" though BBC recordings are on OA. The FTV liner notes don't really state where the FTV recordings come from. "You done lost that good thing now" is the only recording that repeats on both CD's. Otherwise, the material on both CD's are unique to their respective collections. So, I'll go and say this on the ledge posting now. At least we got to the bottom of it, that's the main thing."

John

macfan 57 · #7 08-05-2003, 06:33 AM

Thanks, John. It's an interesting CD, mainly for Christine's stuff. The only aggravating thing about it is the liner notes in the booklet. It's hard to know which songs she plays on, other than the ones which have her on lead vocals. I checked out a Chicken Shack website, and I believe she's on at least half of the tracks, probably more. If only all albums had precise liner notes like the Blue Horizon box set.

wetcamelfood · #8 08-05-2003, 07:19 PM

Yeah I know, I wish CD liner notes would point that stuff out too, would it really be that hard for them to do? I guess so.

Just as a guess, I'd say (in addition to the ones she sings lead on) she might be on:

Night life (cuz it was originally the B-side to the IRGB single)
Tell me (cuz of it being on "OK Ken" originally)
Lonesome whistle blues (cuz of it being on 40BFFPARTS)
The letter (for the same reason as LWB)
San ho zay (for the same reason as LWB & TL)

...as it does seem that Stan has tried to "bury the past" when soldiering on with new CS lineups so you'd think that he would've dropped these songs from his set lists pretty early on (if this was in fact what he had tried to do)

...but heck, "Strange things happening" was one that surprised me that she sang lead on as I didn't even know of this song existing until this CD so she probably is on some others as there are many old sounding ones (i.e. more trad than the blues/rock boogie that the Shack later went in to etc.) with chunky piano that sound like possible CM contenders and Stan's guitar being more restrained (unlike tracks such as "Telling your fortune" which, as an example, is a track that I'm certain she wouldn't be on and that it must be from the early 70's Shack (at the earliest).

Tracks like "Tired eyes" sound like they could have her piano work, I think I hear this more evident on the "On air" version of this song so it's just another flimsy reason I've been leaning towards since they won't give us good liner notes and we have to do this kind of assuming in the meantime.

Oh well, hopefully someday we'll find out for sure somehow.

John