''40 Blue Fingers, Freshly Packed and Ready to Serve'' is the debut studio

album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

by the

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

band

Chicken Shack Chicken Shack are a British blues band, founded in the mid-1960s by Stan Webb (guitar and vocals), Andy Silvester (bass guitar), and Alan Morley (drums), who were later joined by Christine Perfect (later McVie) (vocals and keyboards) in 1967. ...

, released in 1968. The album reached number 12 in the

UK Albums Chart The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts C ...

. This album has three Freddy King covers; "Lonesome Whistle Blues" (written by Rudolph Toombs), "See See Baby" from ''

Freddy King Sings ''Freddy King Sings'' is an album by blues singer and guitarist Freddie King. Released in 1961, it was King's first album and includes four singles that appeared in ''Billboard'' magazine's R&B and Pop charts. In 2008, ''Freddy King Sings'' was ...

''; and "San-Ho-Zay" from '' Let's Hide Away and Dance Away''.

Background

Chicken Shack's first single “It's Okay With Me Baby / When My Left Eye Jumps” (BH 57-3135), was released in 1968 shortly before their first LP release ''40 Blue Fingers, Freshly Packed and Ready to Serve'' was released later that year. Christine Perfect composed and sang on side A of the first single and Stan Webb composed and sang the song on the flip side. Neither side of the first single was included on the first LP release. "Mike Vernon (2007) Chicken Shack - The Complete Blue Horizon Sessions, page 6" The first non-album single and the debut LP attracted a lot of attention. ''40 Blue Fingers…'' ended up having considerable chart success (No. 12 on the British Album Charts)."Mike Vernon (2007) Chicken Shack - The Complete Blue Horizon Sessions, page 9" Stan Webb and Christine Perfect both wrote two songs for the album and the rest of the songs were blues covers. Webb sang lead vocals on all of his compositions as well as all of the covers. Perfect sang lead only on her compositions. The entire album and the rest of the Chicken Shack sessions on Blue Horizon were made available on the CD compilation ''Chicken Shack – The Complete Blue Horizon Sessions'' in 2007.

Track listing

Personnel

Chicken Shack

* Stan Webb –

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...

Christine Perfect Christine Anne McVie (; née Perfect; 12 July 1943 – 30 November 2022) was an English musician and songwriter. She was best known as keyboardist and one of the vocalists of the band Fleetwood Mac. McVie was a member of several bands, nota ...

–

organ Organ may refer to: Biology * Organ (biology), a part of an organism Musical instruments * Organ (music), a family of keyboard musical instruments characterized by sustained tone ** Electronic organ, an electronic keyboard instrument ** Hammond ...

, vocals,

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

Andy Silvester Andrew Frederick Silvester (born 16 June 1947, Kidderminster, Worcestershire, England) is a British bassist and multi-instrumentalist. Silvester has played in various bands during his career, most notably as co-founder of both Chicken Shack and ...

– bass *Dave Bidwell –

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

Additional personnel

*Alan Ellis –

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...

Dick Heckstall-Smith Richard Malden Heckstall-Smith (26 September 1934 – 17 December 2004) was an English jazz and blues saxophonist. He played with some of the most influential English blues rock and jazz fusion bands of the 1960s and 1970s. He is known for pri ...

–

tenor saxophone The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor and the alto are the two most commonly used saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B (while th ...

Johnny Almond Johnny Almond (20 July 1946 – 18 November 2009) was a British saxophonist, who is best known for his recordings with the Alan Price Set, Fleetwood Mac, John Mayall and Mark-Almond. Biography Johnny Almond was born in Enfield, Middlesex, Engla ...

–

alto saxophone The alto saxophone is a member of the saxophone family of woodwind instruments. Saxophones were invented by Belgian instrument designer Adolphe Sax in the 1840s and patented in 1846. The alto saxophone is pitched in E, smaller than the B tenor ...

Production

*Producer – Mike Vernon *Engineer – Mike Ross *Studio –

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainmen ...

*Photography and design – Terence Ibbott

References

{{Authority control 1968 debut albums Chicken Shack albums Blue Horizon Records albums Albums produced by Mike Vernon (record producer)