Very Best of Major Lance

IF YOU'RE AN R&B AFICIONADO THIS A MUST FOR YOUR COLLECTION. THE CD HAS HIT AFTER HIT AND WILL TAKE YOUR MEMORY WAY BACK TO THE EARLY TO MID 1960'S. MANY OF THESE SONGS WERE WRITTEN AND PRODUCED BY THE LATE CURTIS MAYFIELD. "MONKEY TIME" IS ONE OF MY ALL TIME FAVORITES. YOU'LL ALSO LIKE THE VERSION BY LAURA NYRO ON HER ALBUM "GONNA TAKE A MIRACLE" FEATURING LABELLE.

Major Lance was a protege of the great Curtis Mayfield. His Sixties recordings were great examples of Chicago sweet Soul. This collection brings together all of his biggest hits and most of his best tracks. The songwriting, arranging and producing is mainly by Curtis Mayfield and is very much in the vein of his classic work with The Impressions--melodic, rhythmically interesting and compelling. Major Lance is vocally quite worthy of the material. The results are a must for any Mayfield fan.

Major Lance, born April 4, 1942 in Mississippi but raised in the same Chicago housing project where both Curtis Mayfield and Jerry Butler grew up, enjoyed a brief, but productive recording career with Columbia's Okeh subsidiary.

After cutting one unsuccessful single with Mercury in 1959 (both sides of which were penned by Mayfield), he finally struck pay-dirt at Okeh in late summer 1963 with The Monkey Time which, b/w Mama Didn't Know (one of two flipsides included here), shot to # 2 R&B/# 8 Billboard Pop Hot 100. That was followed late that year by Hey Little Girl, not quite as big a hit but a solid # 12 R&B/# 13 Hot b/w Crying In The Rain.

Unfortunately for Major, it was around this time that Billboard decided to suspend their R&B charts, a situation that would last throughout 1964 as well, and so any R&B chart positions you see now for that period were arbitrarily added much later, and would be the same as the Hot 100 position, for "historical purposes." Otherwise, it's a safe bet that the R&B charts position for the hits to follow would have been substantially higher. Another factor working against his Pop performance was the arrival in early 1964 of the British Invasion led, of course, by The Beatles.

Still, early that year the catchy Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um made it to # 5 Hot 100 b/w Sweet Music. All three of his hits to this point had been written by Mayfield, but not his next one, The Matador, which he co-wrote himself and took to # 20 Hot 100 in April b/w Gonna Get Married. That, certainly, would reflect a much higher R&B position today had those charts still been in effect, as would his next release, a double-sided hit that summer that didn't fare very well on the Brit-dominated Pop charts, as It Ain't No Use and its B-side, Girls (both penned by Mayfield) struggled to a # 68.

Neverteless, he came back fairly strong in late summer 1964 with another Mayfield tune, Rhythm, which topped out at # 24 b/w Please Don't Say No More. A bit of a dry spell then followed until early 1965, by which time the R&B charts had been re-instated, when Sometimes I Wonder got to # 13 R&B/# 64 Hot 100 b/w I'm So Lost (the other B-side included here). In April, Come See peaked at # 20 R&B/# 40 Hot 100 b/w You Belong To Me My Love, followed in July by another # 20 R&B entry, Ain't It A Shame, which struggled badly on the Hot 100, only reaching # 91. The last three were all written as well by Mayfield.

A bit of an oddity then cropped up in the fall when two releases made their chart debut within a week of each other, as Too Hot To Hold would make its way to # 31 R&B/#93 Hot 100 b/w Dark And Lonely, and It's The Beat (another Mayfield song) reached # 37 R&B but only a # 128 Hot 100 "bubble under." He would then be off the charts until early 1968 when Without A Doubt staggered to a low # 49 R&B b/w Forever.

That would be his last hit with Okeh, and it's here along with the other 12 and two B-sides in excellent sound, and with an insert containing three pages of background notes written by noted freelance music journalist Bill Dahl and a partial discography of the contents (no chart details).

Lance, who would go on to post five more minor hits for Dakar (1 in 1969), Curtom (2 in 1970/71), Playboy (2 - including a 1974 disco re-make of Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um and another in 1975), and his own label Osiris (1 in 1975), would spend 1978 to 1981 in prison for selling cocaine and, on September 9, 1994 pass away following heart failure.