Lance Ellington is a freelance artist ( singer) having worked with many of the greats over his career. On this website we will be referring to his output in relationship to the KooLr label and also the main producer Pete Pritchard. You can find a lot of information about Lance all over the web and very interesting it is too!
Lance and Pete got together in the mid 1980s to form an act making soulful music based in London England. They were given an incredible opportunity to make their first album at Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis’ Flyte Tyme studios in Minneapolis USA in 1990. The album was entitled “Pleasure and Pain” and is now being released digitally for the very first time. They worked with the in house engineer Steve Hodge on this and the album was released shortly afterwards but unfortunately it was not a big commercial success. Lance continued his career as a session singer and added to it with writing and performing for some of the biggest acts during the 1990s. Pete started a record company which has developed and evolved over the years and in 2021 started the new imprint KooLr after having worked with Lance once again during the lock downs in the pandemic in 2020. So, the scene was set for releasing the old and new music that Lance and Pete had created over a span of 35 years but with a huge gap in the middle.
The material Lance and Pete have made reflects their mutual love of American soul which continues to evolve as a genre. Their debut album is firmly in the 80s soul camp but the new stuff digs into neo soul production right through to one of their other loves, jazz. There was no specific plan to this new stuff. It was a joyful expression of creativity during testing times yet Lance’s wonderful rich voice holds everything together as one, due to his amazing versatility and exemplary technique. Many of these songs were written in 1991 but never found an outlet until now. With this in mind most of the material being released by Koolr was conceived in the late 80’s or early 90’s. None of the original material is newly penned. This places all the material in a time and place even if the production of the new stuff is “contemporary”. As far as that is possible!
Lance is once again out singing live in many places, both as a leader and with other artists. We highly recommend you follow Lance on his social media where you will find up to date information about his gigs and concerts. Also on streaming and download platforms Lance has a multitude of material he has released over the years. If you are here for the Soul and Jazz output on KooLr then you are in the right place.