Radio de Major Lance
Major Lance (April 4, 1939, ? September 3, 1994) was an American R&B/Northern soul singer. Allmusic journalist, Stephen Thomas Erlewine, states "blessed with a warm, sweet voice, Lance was one of the leading figures of Chicago soul during the 1960s and the top-selling artist for OKeh Records during the decade. During the height of his success, the majority of his songs were written by Curtis Mayfield and produced by Carl Davis, and the pair developed a smooth, Latin-flavored sound that was punctuated by brass and layered with vocal harmonies, usually from The Impressions." His 1959 Mercury release, "I Got A Girl", was written and produced by Mayfield, but his career did not take off until he signed with OKeh Records in 1962.Another Mayfield song, "The Monkey Time" (1963), reached number 2 on the U.S. Billboard R&B charts and number 8 on the corresponding pop listings, and the partnership continued with further hits.These included "Hey Little Girl", a Top 15 R&B and pop hit later that year, and "Um Um Um Um Um Um", (1964) which reached number 5 on both the R&B and pop charts.The latter song also reached #40 in the UK Singles Chart in February 1964.[3] Over the next eighteen months, Lance continued to record more singles, nearly all of which reached the R&B Top 40, but only a handful ? "The Matador" (which Mayfield did not write), "Rhythm" and "Come See" ? were pop hits.Following personnel changes at OKeh, Lance was sent to work with Billy Sherrill in Nashville, Tennessee, but out of this partnership only "It's the Beat" was a Top 40 hit.Lance worked with a number of producers during 1966 and 1967, with only "Without a Doubt" scraping the R&B charts in 1968, and he left OKeh shortly after that single, moving to Daka Records the following year, where he had the R&B hit "Follow the Leader."Within a year, he moved to Mayfield's Curtom Records label, which resulted in his last two decent hits with "Stay Away From Me (I Love You too Much)" and "Must Be Love Coming Down." Lance made few performances after a heart attack in 1987.He died in 1994, at the age of 55, as a result of heart disease in Decatur, Georgia.He was interred at Washington Memory Gardens Cemetery in Homewood, Illinois.