On This Day in 1971, The Rolling Stones Were at No. 1 With a Raunchy Track Inspired by Ike Turner’s Backup Singer

On this day (May 29) in 1971, The Rolling Stones started a two-week run at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 with “Brown Sugar.” They recorded it during a three-day stint at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama two years before its release. Mick Jagger wrote the song’s controversial lyrics with his then-girlfriend and backup singer for Ike Turner, Claudia Lennear, in mind.

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When Jagger and Lennear met, The Rolling Stones were touring with Ike and Tina Turner, and she was a member of the Ikettes, their backing vocal group. The pair had a brief fling that inspired Jagger to pen the track’s lascivious lyrics. This has been disputed, though.

[RELATED: The Former Ikette Who Inspired the Rolling Stones’ “Brown Sugar” and the End of David Bowie’s ‘Aladdin Sane’]

Jagger was dating Marsha Hunt, the mother of his first child, at the time. Hunt claims that she was the inspiration for the song. Bill Wyman sided with Lennear in his 2002 memoir Rolling with the Stones, confirming that she partially inspired the hit. Jagger, the only person who knows the concrete truth of the matter, hasn’t publicly named his muse.

Claudia Lennear Loves This Raunchy Rolling Stones Rocker

The lyrics of “Brown Sugar” have been raising eyebrows–and concerns–for decades. It’s a song in which the lines Brown sugar, how come you taste so good? / Brown sugar, just like a young girl should aren’t close to being the most objectionable, after all. Despite that, it remained a staple of Rolling Stones concerts from the time they debuted it at Altamont Speedway in December 1969 until 2021.

Claudia Lennear was one of the many fans who were not happy with its omission from the band’s live repertoire. She said that fans who see The Rolling Stones live after the song was cut from the setlist are missing out on a “great part of rock and roll history.”

“I’m sensitive, but when it comes to poetic license, I let it go. It’s just a great riff. It’s a great hook. Keith Richards plays those first two notes, everyone is on their feet, everybody’s clapping, dancing, singing,” she said. “When I hear it, my first thought is long live the Rolling Stones.”

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