Take 6: an entirely new concept in dodgy claims!

Sometimes the sleeve notes on covers LPs and EPs can raise a smile - usually for the wrong reasons. This latest acquisition, another pick-up from Ebay in fact, falls into that category. It's a Take 6 "Long playing record". Hmm... if it's a long player, that would make it an LP, wouldn't it? I thought 6-track, 7-inch records were EPs - extended play records?

Take 6 is one of the Avenue family of labels (see also Forest, Disc-A-Fran, Studio 33 etc.). As such, this EP (for that is what it is) comes in the wake of Avenue's own EP series, which, by the time this record appeared, was at instalment number six, all of them 6-track soundalike EPs in picture covers. So it's strange that the back of this Take 6 EP describes it as, "An entirely new concept in the recording of popular music". Surely some mistake?

Anyway, enough nit-picking. Check out the great picture cover - a reference to the song, "Flowers In The Rain". And check out the track listing too - a superb snapshot of the charts in that famous Summer of Love. 

This EP is one of an unknown number on the Take 6 imprint, which appeared in 1967. So far I have only become aware of three, although the catalogue number system, and indeed the track listings, suggests there are at least three more in existence. Eagle-eyed readers may find the tracks on this disc look familiar - five of them are also featured on Avenue's own AVE 44:

The missing song is Ray Bentley's own "For Your Love", which has been replaced by a cover of "Itchycoo Park". And this pattern of Take 6 borrowing five tracks from the current Avenue release seems to be a consistent policy. This is my current Take 6 listing, and note how the gaps in the sequence match up to intervening Avenue EPs - evidence that they do exist... 

T/AVE 601      Unknown

T/AVE 602      Lead track: "San Francisco"   [shares five tracks with AVE 42]

T/AVE 603      Unknown

T/AVE 604      Lead track: "The Last Waltz"   [shares five tracks with AVE 44]      

T/AVE 605      Unknown

T/AVE 606      Lead track: "Let The Heartaches Begin"   [shares five tracks with AVE 46]

Anyone know anything more? Drop us a line!