Major Lance

Major Lance (April 4, 1939), 1941 or 1942– September 3, 1994 was an American R&B singer. After a number of US hits in the 1960s, including "The Monkey Time" and "Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um", he became an iconic figure in Britain in the 1970s among followers of Northern soul. Although he stopped making records in 1982, Major Lance continued to perform at concerts and on tours until his death in 1994.

Early life

There has been some dispute over Major Lance's birth year; some sources claim he was born in 1941 or in 1942 (as Lance claimed). However, 1939 appears to be the correct year of birth. In the 1940 U.S. Census, there is a "Mager" Lance listed in Washington County, Mississippi as the one-year-old son of Lucendy Lance, a widow. Lance's gravestone also states he was born in 1939. 'Major' was his given forename, not a nickname or stage name.

Lance, who was one of 12 children, moved with his family on the northwest side of Chicago in the Cabrini-Green projects, a high-crime area, as a child where he developed a boyhood friendship with Otis Leavill, both attending Wells High School. This was the same school Curtis Mayfield and Jerry Butler attended. Mayfield called Lance a "sparkly fellow, and a great basketball player, which is probably how we met. His hero was Jackie Wilson, and he was always coming round and looking through my bag for songs that I'd written but didn't want to do with the Impressions. He was pretty good at picking them, too."

The Monkey

"The Monkey" is a short story by Stephen King, first published in Gallery magazine in 1980. It was significantly revised and published in King's collection Skeleton Crew in 1985.

Plot summary

The story centers on a cymbal-banging monkey toy with supernatural powers. Every time the monkey claps its little cymbals together, a nearby living thing dies. The monkey is found in a family's attic in an old toy chest by two young brothers, Petey and Dennis, unknowing that their father, Hal, had been tormented by the monkey years ago, when it worked its lethal enchantment on his family and friends, until Hal had chucked it down the old well at the home of his uncle and aunt. The monkey had belonged to Hal's unnamed father, a merchant mariner who disappeared under mysterious circumstances, and Hal found the monkey among the various trinkets and junk left behind by him. Hal takes the monkey and throws it in Crystal Lake, hoping that it won't be able to escape from it. The story ends with an excerpt of a newspaper article which reports on a mysterious die-off of fish in the lake.