Christine’s piano playing in Chicken Shack

[lazy poker]

Originally Posted by aleuzzi

Today, I was listening to “It’s Okay With Me Baby” (always loved this tune) and let compilation album continue right into “When My Left Eye Jumps.” I hardly ever listen to the Stan Webb tracks so I was floored by Christine’s piano playing on the song. If you can put up with Stan’s singing, I urge to listen to it. Her attack is so confident and forceful, as if she’d been playing blues her entire life. And given the lack of overdubbing, the piano is foregrounded in the mix, so you can really hear her digging in.

(. . .) I do wish she’d allowed herself an occasional opportunity to break out like she did on the first two Chicken Shack records.

The reason I got into Chicken Shack at the time indeed was Christine, not Stan Webb. Let's face it - he's a hardly bearable howler (to avoid the terms "singer" and "vocalist") and he's not much of a real blues guitarist. That said, it was the tracks that were mostly dominated by Christine's great piano playing and her haunting vocals (the like I've never heard before!) that drew me into the Shack. And - as I mentioned somewhere else here before already - another part that was responsible for that, was the tight rhythm section of Andy Sylvester and Dave Bidwell. So I could've done well without the eccentric Mr. Webb - with the Christine Perfect Trio, if you like.

But that was certainly not to be and by the way she'd recorded her eponimous first album and had a few gigs with her band featuring Top Topham, she'd already changed her style pretty much. Thus I had hoped that it would actually come to a much-rumoured blues album of hers, to maybe once more bringing her fine piano style and her satin vocals to the fore in an according blues setting. But somehow I'm afraid this is nothing more than wishful thinking again.