Lance moved with his family on the northwest side of Chicago in the Cabrini-Green projects, where there was a lot of crime in the area, as a child. After moving to Chicago, he developed a boyhood friendship with another singer named Otis Leavill Cobb. They both attended Wells High School. This was the same school Curtis Mayfield and Jerry Butler, who were also both singers too, went to. Mayfield called him 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." Lance and Otis both toke boxing and were also singing as members of the Five Gospel Harmonaires. Both of them also worked together at a drug store.