Friendly, talented Otis Leavill Cobb was born February 8, 1943, in Dewey Rose, GA. The Cobb family moved to Chicago two years later and settled in the Londale area on the Westside. Leavill has four brothers and two sisters; a sister and a brother have expired. His father pastored the First Church of Deliverance on South Wabash, one of the first to broadcast on the radio, and formed the Cobb Singers, with Otis a member. Leavill's childhood chum, Major Lance lived in the Cabrini Green Projects near Curtis Mayfield and Jerry Butler. They slept over at each other houses and acted more like brothers than buddies. As teenagers the two pals participated in amateur boxing at St.
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