Major Lance

Major Lance stood out among the key voices shaping Chicago soul throughout the 1960s, his warm and sweet delivery helping him become OKeh Records’ highest-selling performer of the era. Beyond the appeal of his voice, the songs themselves stood out, most of them penned by Curtis Mayfield and guided by producer Carl Davis during Lance’s commercial peak. Together they crafted a polished, Latin-inflected style that featured prominent brass accents and rich vocal layers, often supplied by the Impressions. The approach embodied urban, uptown soul and, though smoother than its Southern counterparts, its buoyant grooves and uplifting melodies turned tracks such as “The Monkey Time” and “Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um” into enduring favorites of the period’s feel-good R&B. After parting from Mayfield and Davis in the late 1960s Lance’s fortunes faded, yet his classic OKeh sides continue to rank among the decade’s most cherished soul recordings.

Winterville, Mississippi, was the birthplace of Major Lance, who arrived in Chicago during childhood and first lived on the city’s west side before relocating farther north. At Wells High School, also attended by Curtis Mayfield and Jerry Butler, Lance initially pursued boxing until music captured his interest and he formed the Floats alongside Otis Leavill. Although the group never issued any records, Lance’s dancing secured him an appearance on a local program modeled after American Bandstand and hosted by disc jockey Jim Lounsbury. The host arranged a one-off Mercury Records single for Lance in 1959, resulting in the Mayfield-written and produced “I Got a Girl,” which vanished without trace and left the singer taking on assorted jobs for the next three years.

Connections with Otis Leavill and especially Curtis Mayfield, who had placed the Impressions with ABC Records and scored hits with his own ensemble, led to Lance’s 1962 signing with the reactivated OKeh label. His debut single for the company, “Delilah,” appeared later that year. Mayfield wrote the song, as he did most of Lance’s material, and together with OKeh president Carl Davis and arranger Johnny Pate they shaped a signature Latin-tinged sound marked by gliding trombones and nimble rhythms intended to set Chicago soul apart from scenes in the South, New York, Detroit, and California. Although “Delilah” failed to chart, the follow-up “The Monkey Time” proved explosive. Issued in summer 1963, it climbed to number two on the R&B charts and number eight on the pop side, establishing both Lance and the revived OKeh as serious pop contenders. Later that year “Hey Little Girl” reached the pop and R&B Top 15, while early 1964 brought the Top Ten success of “Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um.”

Those two singles marked the summit of Lance’s popularity. Over the ensuing eighteen months he released additional Mayfield-penned, Davis-produced singles that nearly all entered the R&B Top 40, though only a few—“The Matador” (which Mayfield did not write), “Rhythm,” and “Come See”—crossed over to become pop hits. After the summer 1965 Top 20 R&B entry “Ain’t It a Shame,” Johnny Pate moved to ABC Records and Mayfield turned his focus back to his group, yet Lance and Davis maintained the Chicago formula by enlisting guitarist Gerald Sims as songwriter and co-producer. Several singles followed, among them the R&B hit “Too Hot to Hold” and the Van McCoy-penned “Everybody Loves a Good Time,” before Davis departed OKeh amid disputes with Epic executives, prompting Lance’s reassignment to Billy Sherrill in Nashville. The resulting sessions yielded “It’s the Beat,” Lance’s sole remaining Top 40 hit. When the Sherrill collaboration faltered, Lance worked with various producers through 1966 and 1967, managing only the modest R&B chart entry “Without a Doubt” in 1968. He left OKeh soon after that release, joining Daka Records the next year and scoring the Top 40 R&B hit “Follow the Leader.” Within a year he arrived at Mayfield’s Curtom label, where he notched his final two Top 40 R&B successes: the number 13 single “Stay Away from Me (I Love You Too Much)” and “Must Be Love Coming Down.”

Lance exited Curtom in 1971 and spent the following years moving among labels including Volt and Columbia with little commercial impact. Relocating to England in 1972 placed him amid the height of the Northern soul movement, whose dance clubs specialized in rare and overlooked American soul and R&B recordings. He remained a regular performer on that circuit for two years before returning to Atlanta in 1974. A contract with Playboy yielded a disco rendition of “Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um” that achieved modest success, followed by two further minor hits in 1975. His career then spiraled downward, culminating in a 1978 conviction for cocaine distribution and a four-year prison term. After his release Lance performed on the beach-music circuit along the Carolina coast until a 1987 heart attack curtailed any sustained return. He delivered a final acclaimed set at the 1994 Chicago Blues Festival, which proved to be his last public appearance. Major Lance died of heart failure on September 3, 1994, at age 55, survived by a body of work that remains among the finest examples of Midwestern soul from the 1960s.