Born in 1946 in Providence, Rhode Island, soul singer Claudia Lennear relocated with her family to Pomona, California, in 1964 and was singing behind Ike and Tina Turner, Leon Russell, Humble Pie, Joe Cocker, Freddie King, and more a few years later. Lennear also sang backing vocals on George Harrison’s The Concert for Bangladesh, two years before releasing her debut and only album, Phew!, in 1973.
In 1969, Lennear started a romance with Mick Jagger, whom she met while Ike and Tina Turner were touring with the Rolling Stones. During this period, the Stones were recording parts of their ninth album, Sticky Fingers, at Muscle Shoals Sound Studios in Alabama, and Lennear helped inspire the opening track.
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“Brown Sugar”
Though Mick Jagger has never confirmed who “Brown Sugar” was about, former Stones bassist Bill Wyman said the song was partially inspired by Lennear in his 2001 book Rolling with the Stones. The song has also been linked to Marsha Hunt, who was Jagger’s girlfriend at the time and gave birth to his first child, daughter Karis Jagger Hunt, months after they broke up in 1970.
For a long time, “Brown Sugar” was the second most-played song by the Stones, behind “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” before the band dropped it from their setlist in 2021, after being criticized for its references to slavery and sexual assault.
“We’ve played ‘Brown Sugar’ every night since 1970,” Jagger told the LA Times. “So sometimes you think, ‘We’ll take that one out for now and see how it goes’. We might put it back in.”
Ketih Richards told the Los Angeles Times, “I don’t know. I’m trying to figure out with the sisters quite where the beef is. Didn’t they understand this was a song about the horrors of slavery? But they’re trying to bury it. At the moment, I don’t want to get into conflicts with all of this s–t. But I’m hoping that we’ll be able to resurrect the babe in her glory somewhere along the track.”
Though controversial, Lennear also defended “Brown Sugar” in 2021, calling it “one of the greatest rock songs of all time, and not because I had anything to do with it.” Since it was pulled from the Stones’ live set, Lennear said fans are “missing out on a great part of rock and roll history. When do we learn to understand history without getting upset? Right now we’re not really in that space.”
In 1974, Lennear even appeared in the August issue of Playboy magazine in a pictorial entitled Brown Sugar. “It’s just a great riff,” Lennear added of the Stones classic. “It’s a great hook. Keith Richards plays those first two notes, everyone is on their feet, everybody’s clapping, dancing, singing. When I hear it, my first thought is: long live the Rolling Stones.”
Bowie’s “Lady Grinning Soul”
In 1972, Lennear met David Bowie when they were seated across from one another at a dinner party thrown by a mutual agent. Their brief affair inspired another song on Bowie’s sixth album, Aladdin Sane. “Lady Grinning Soul” was a saucier ballad written about Lennear—And when the clothes are strewn / Don’t be afraid of the room / Touch the fullness of her breast / Feel the love of her caress / She will be your living end.
“No, you don’t need to refresh my memory,” said Lennear of the cheeky lyrics in 2016. “The line about the clothes being strewn, that gets the eye roll. He’s so dramatic.”
In his notes, Bowie said the song was “written for a wonderful young girl whom I’ve not seen for more than 30 years. When I hear this song, she’s still in her 20s, of course.” He added, “A song will put you tantalizingly close to the past, so close that you can almost reach out and touch it. The sound of ghosts again.”
Lennear and Bowie remained in contact throughout the years and even came close to collaborating on her comeback album. “We were unlikely friends,” Lennear said, following Bowie’s death in 2016. Their last communication was on Christmas Eve, less than three weeks before his death.
When Bowie called Lennear in 2014, he revealed to her that “Lady Grinning Soul” was indeed about her, telling her, “You know you are my lady grinning soul.”
Photo: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
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