Forest EP

I was pleased to add the EP below to my collection. Although by no means one of the holy grails of budget records, it is nevertheless pretty rare, and forms part of a short-lived series of EPs on the Forest label.

The Forest label was introduced by Avenue in April 1972, as a way of re-launching and revitalising Avenue's 7-inch offer, which dated back to 1967. Typically the Avenue EPs would contain half of one of the label's LPs, and were accordingly issued in pairs more often than not - a formula which Forest naturally continued with.

This EP is from the Avenue album released in Summer 1972, and contains 50 percent of the LP. It is not clear why a partner EP was not also released, with the remaining six tracks on, but such are the mysteries of the Avenue discography. Below is the cover of the parent LP:

The EP is catalogue numbered FVA 2023, and is the seventh of nine Forest EPs released in 1972-73 containing soundalike cover versions. Below is the full Forest discography (cover versions only), with the approximate release dates given along with the lead track on each disc:

• 4/72     EVA 2001       Telegram Sam
• 4/72     EVA 2013       Look Wot You Dun
• 4/73     FVA 2016       Beg, Steal Or Borrow
• 4/73     FVA 2017       Desiderata
• 5/73     FVA 2020       Tumbling Dice
• 5/73     FVA 2021       Open Up
• 7/73     FVA 2023       Circles
• 9/73     FVA 2024       Pop Corn
• 9/73     FVA 2030       Love Theme From The Godfather

The Forest EPs had better quality picture sleeves than the Avenue EPs they replaced, and the cover model on this particular example is familiar to us; it's LP sleeve regular, Susy Shaw, of course. Susy would soon appear on the front of one of Avenue's LPs as well, in a similar pose: