The successor to MGM / Verve's 'Verve Folkways' label. Verve Folkways was set up in 1966 and seems to have functioned mainly as as a contemporary singer / songwriter label. After half a dozen issues it was revamped, and was given the more dynamic name of Verve Forecast. The label design remained basically the same (1, 3), as did the VS-1500 numerical series, but several numbers were missed out, the Forecasts starting from VS-1510. In late 1970 MGM ended its manufacture and distribution deal with EMI and moved to Polydor; Verve and Verve Forecast went with it and were allotted one of Polydor's seven-digit numerical series for their singles, 2009-000. The label design remained essentially unchanged, though Polydor's dinked centres and triangular 'spider' adaptors became a feature (2). Sadly there was not a lot of life left in either Verve or its offspring, from a singles' point of view, and just three Verve Forecasts were released, all of them in 1971, before the label was closed down. All of the tracks on them were reissues. The last Verve Forecast, Ella Fitzgerald's 1957 recordings of 'Manhattan' and 'Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye' (2009-017; 8/71), which had been part of Polydor's family-wide 'Action Replay' series (3, 6), was flipped and reissued on Verve in March 1976. For the other records in the series see the 'Action Replay' page. Sporadic reissues on Verve appeared at wide intervals during the '80s and '90s, but no more was heard of Verve Forecast until it was revived in the late 1990s and given a new lease of life as a proper contemporary label. Thanks to Nicholas Hough for the first scan.
Copyright 2014 Robert Lyons.