Earth, Wind & Fire - Reasons

John, I knew that "Reasons" was issued as a 45 in the UK in 1976, as
you've correctly noted from Discogs, but I don't have it. An old buddy of
mine is a huge fan of theirs, however. I'll see if he may have it, or at least
possibly know something more about it.

For the life of me, I just couldn't figure out why my local Top 40 station all
of a sudden started playing this unknown song that I immediately loved,
as a recurrent, sometime during '76. So I immediately asked my go-to,
Wayne, the owner of my local Mom-and-Pop record shop about it. He said
it was from their 1975 "That's The Way Of The World" album. I then had to
buy the album, of course. But I was still no closer to finding out why my
AM Top 40 station was suddenly playing this track. I listened a lot. They
had a tight playlist, and just didn't play things like that on-air normally.

Years later, I discovered that Columbia had apparently issued a promo-
only 45 in 1975 (before I started in radio), as AS 1631: "Reasons"/"Happy
Feelin". I have been looking for it for many years and, to this day, have
still never even seen a copy of it. (It is listed in Discogs, however.) It is
noted as having a (4:53) run time, but includes no visual label scan to
confirm this fact.

This was my first clue, however, as to how "Reasons" might've gotten onto
the radar of certain Top 40 programmers in '75. Jocks/MDs/PDs changed
often in Top 40 radio, and my local Top 40 market was no exception. I
later learned that most PDs had a couple of songs they personally
considered to be "secret weapons". That they felt sounded especially good
on-air, hadn't been overplayed, and would spike them in, feeling they
would help them gain a ratings edge over their competitors. Clearly
someone came to my station from elsewhere, had remembered "Reasons"
from that old promo 45, and added it to his personal "spike-in bag of
tricks". Most of the radio PDs I later came to know over the years seemed
to ask themselves this one very same question about 500 times every day!
:)

My final "Reasons" chapter happened years later, when I unexpectedly
stumbled upon a Columbia Hall Of Fame reprint 45 (13-33389), that
paired the track with "After The Love Has Gone". (there's currently a copy
on eBay for cheap, FYI, and should still be pretty easy to find.) Since it was
the first time I'd ever actually seen it on a 45, I bought it. It has a listed
time of (4:53), an actual time of (4:49), and handwritten deadwax of "ZSS-
160368-1AA". Both then and now, I strongly suspected that Columbia
used the very same 45 stamper for my reprint 45 that was first used to
make that elusive 1975 promo-only 45. Especially since I've heard that no
label seemed to continue using their older, worn stampers like Columbia
did.

John, my current conclusion is that the only U.S 45 length for "Reasons" is
what I noted above, from the contents of my Columbia reprint 45.

Jim, thanks to you and your friend for coming up with
the UK 45 dub.

I was able to recreate this 3:59 version. Using the
"Essential Earth, Wind & Fire, you'l need to slow down
the file by 1%. There is a 15 second segment removed,
then with what's left, fade from 3:50-3:59, ending on
the first part of the word "baby."

The segment that is removed (after you slow the
"Essential" version down 1%) stretches from 2:27.825 -
2:43.113.