Chicken Shack Featuring Stan Webb - Poor Boy - The Deram Years 1972-74 (2CD) (2006)

After the four stellar albums represented by "The Complete Blue Horizon Sessions," guitarist Stan Webb took a two-year breather. Between 1970 and 1972 music changed A LOT, and when Stan was finally ready to retake the stage, the same old 4-bar blues just wasn't gonna cut it anymore. Stan's idea for the New Chicken Shack was a sort of hybrid between the old Shack and the newer heavier post-blues bands like Led Zeppelin, Cream, Blind Faith, Traffic, Jethro Tull, et al.

To my thinking the resulting albums, "Imagination Lady" (1972) and "Unlucky Boy" (1973) were not entirely successful. They never achieved the carefree adrenaline-fueled swagger of those other bands, probably due to Stan's perfectionist tendencies. Who ever heard of meticulous heavy metal? They never sold very well either (except in Germany) and their relative failure led to Stan's effective retirement a few years later (temporary, thank god). Nevertheless they represent an interesting coda to the Blue Horizon sessions, and a glimpse of what could have been.

Tacked onto these two albums is a rare German-only live album from 1974, showcasing the band in its power-4tet lineup thrashing through some ramped-up BB King, Bert Weedon and Little Richard covers. It is of passing interest, certainly not a lost masterpiece. by Robert Carlberg