Chicken Shack

Chicken Shack, a British blues-rock outfit, owes its primary lasting recognition to keyboardist Christine Perfect, who later joined Fleetwood Mac after marrying John McVie and taking his surname. Although the band ranked among the more ordinary participants in the British blues boom, it enjoyed solid commercial favor in the late 1960s, sending two albums into the British Top 20. Guitarist Stan Webb served as the group’s onstage leader rather than Perfect; he stirred British crowds by walking among them during performances thanks to a 100-meter-long guitar lead. The ensemble recorded for Mike Vernon’s Blue Horizon label, a key pillar of British blues whose greatest success came with early Fleetwood Mac.

In the late 1960s Chicken Shack remained close behind Fleetwood Mac in popularity while offering a more traditional strain of Chicago blues strongly shaped by Freddie King. Stan Webb shouldered most songwriting and vocal duties, yet Christine Perfect contributed occasional compositions and lead vocals. She sang lead on the band’s sole British Top 20 single, “I’d Rather Go Blind” (1969). Around that time she left the music business to marry John McVie and become a housewife, though the arrangement proved short-lived. Chicken Shack never regained its commercial or musical footing after her departure. Stan Webb kept the name active with a changing cast of musicians well into the 1980s, pausing briefly in the mid-1970s to play with Savoy Brown. Christine Perfect, later known as Christine McVie, died on November 30, 2022, after a brief illness at the age of 79.