Claudia Lennear
Claudia Lennear (also rendered as Linnear and Lenier when she appeared on Stephen Stills' albums[1]) is an American soul singer.
Musical career
Claudia Lennear has worked with many acts including Ike and Tina Turner, Humble Pie and Joe Cocker.
She was part of a trio of backup singers for Delaney and Bonnie, that also included Rita Coolidge.
Lennear's meetings with Mick Jagger and David Bowie are often cited as inspiration for The Rolling Stones' "Brown Sugar" (1971) and Bowie's "Lady Grinning Soul" (1973).[2][3][4] NME editors Roy Carr and Charles Shaar Murray noted in 1981 that she was "yet to reply in song to either Mick or David".[2] However, in a 1973 article in Rolling Stone, she was quoted as saying that she wrote the song "Not At All" "to inform Mick Jagger of his dispensability".[5]
Claudia Lennear was one of Leon Russell's Shelter People. She sang back-up vocals on Joe Cocker's 1970 Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour and live album, on Leon Russell and the Shelter People, released in 1971 and on George Harrison's The Concert for Bangla Desh. Her lead vocal live recording of "Let It Be" from the Mad Dogs and Englishmen movie was the B side of Leon Russell's "Mad Dogs and Englishment single on A&M Records in 1971.
In 1973, Lennear recorded a solo album of her own (her one and only) entitled Phew![6]
Lennear had a bit part in the 1974 film Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, playing the secretary who asks Clint Eastwood's character for his Social Security number. She appeared in the August 1974 issue of Playboy magazine in a pictorial entitled "Brown Sugar".
She left the music industry to become a teacher[7] of French and Spanish.
Lennear appears in the Academy Award-winning documentary 20 Feet from Stardom (2013), which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.[8]
At the Lockn' Festival in Arrington, VA. on September 11, 2015, Lennear performed with the Tedeschi Trucks Band, Rita Coolidge, Leon Russell and other alumni from the 1970 Joe Cocker Mad Dogs and Englishmen Tour in a memorial concert for Joe Cocker.[9][10]
Discography
As a solo artist
- 1973: Phew!
Filmography
| Year | Film | Role |
|---|---|---|
| 1974 | Thunderbolt and Lightfoot | Secretary |
| 2013 | 20 Feet from Stardom | Herself |
References
- ↑ The New York Times
- 1 2 Roy Carr & Charles Shaar Murray (1981). Bowie: An Illustrated Record: p. 56
- ↑ "Lady Grinning Soul" at The Ziggy Stardust Companion
- ↑ "The lyrics were partially inspired by a black backing singer we knew in L.A. called Claudia Linnear" - Bill Wyman quoted from Rolling With The Stones (2002) at Time Is On Our Side.
- ↑ Fong-Torres, Ben, "Keeping Great Company: An Interview with Claudia Lennear", Rolling Stone, 12 April 1973.
- ↑ "Claudia Lennear - Phew!" at Allmusic.
- ↑ Tigerino, Adolfo, "Former professional singer rocks LAC", mountiewire.com, June 4, 2013.
- ↑ Wikane, Christian John, "Keeping Great Company: An Interview with Claudia Lennear", PopMatters, 20 June 2013.
- ↑ ww.rollingstone.com/music/news/inside-tedeschi-trucks-bands-all-star-joe-cocker-tribute-concert-20150714
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k20NyTHMtJc
External links
- Sean Michaels, "Bowie backing singer claims star has promised to write original songs for her", The Guardian, 6 March 2014.
- "Singer Claudia Lennear on being the subject of The Rolling Stones song 'Brown Sugar'"; audio clip from Robert Elms, With Jason Solomons, Claudia Lennear, Louisa Pestell and Dr. Robert, BBC London, 20 February 2014.