Brown Sugar

About a year ago, some of our staffers, out for a night on the town, happened to catch Claudia Lennear performing in a Chicago night club--and they decided that we just had to get some pictures of her into the magazine. With her clothes off, naturally. Just for the record--in case you've been hanging out in Antarctica--Claudia is a rock singer of unbounded spirit and as much pedigree as you could ask for: She spent two years on the road with Ike & Tina Turner; she's sung background on records by Dave Mason, Freddie King, Delaney & Bonnie, José Feliciano and a lot of other people; she was part of the Mad Dogs & Englishmen caravan that starred Joe Cocker and Leon Russell (last year she was in the studio audience for Russell's special on the educational-TV network, and a lot of people thought she stole the show just by sitting there and responding--energetically--to the music). Though she doesn't broadcast information about her personal involvements, at one time, Claudia was romantically linked, as they say, with Mick Jagger.

Her first response to our invitation--to pose for us--was negative. As you can see, though, she eventually changed her mind. We asked why one morning during her week of photo sessions. We were sitting in the living room of Hugh Hefner's Chicago Mansion, talking and sipping coffee. The tape recorder was turned off, at Claudia's request; she's a high-strung person who doesn't like to listen to her own records--and, paradoxically, is so self-critical that she considers herself too much so, which is about as self-critical as you can get. "Why am I here?" she repeated. "That's the question of my life. I've got so many selves, I don't know which is the inner one--and whichever one prompted this, I haven't any idea." She went on to say that since she'd never modeled before, she was "a little uptight" at first: "It feels weird to sit there in a chair with everything hanging out. But it's just another form of expression, really."

If you get the impression that Claudia is self-conscious, you're right--but to call her that wouldn't be doing her justice. Her mind is like a set of interfacing mirrors: She watches people watching her, and watches herself watching them. Curiosity, as much as anything else, brought her here. Several times during the interview, she remarked on what a "trip" it was to be here; and once--glancing around at all the storied opulence of Hefner's house--she wondered "if I really respect all this or not."

We began the conversation by asking about her past, but she didn't (concluded on page 154)brown sugar(continued from page 72) particularly want to talk about that, so we asked her to fill us in on current events. Turns out she just completed a role--as a small-town secretary, believe it or not--in a Clint Eastwood flick, Thunderbolt & Lightfoot. "Since I'd never acted before, I tried to relate it, in my mind, to recording--but it's different, because you can't get that instant playback." She was expecting to read for other roles in the near future--and also to take her band on another tour, whenever her agency got it together. And she was learning the guitar and the bass, as well as writing songs. Self-improvement is a big thing with her: "I try to learn something every day--at least one thing, no matter how small or subtle. A person can never expand enough. I might go next week and sign up for a course in astronomy, I don't know. Everything has a structure, and the more structures you can get to know about, the better off you are."

Claudia's next album, she promised, would convey more of her complex inner self than last year's Warner Bros. release phew! which had been arranged, in part, by Allen Toussaint, a bona-fide genius of the funky-music business; but somehow the collaboration hadn't panned out as it should have. Claudia told us that the Warner Bros. people didn't give them enough freedom: "Producers, for the most part, are frustrated musicians. So they like to sit in the booth and pull other people's strings. It's a shame, really, because you should have to pay for your blues." Claudia has certainly paid for hers--but she's got a way of making things work out all right. She calls her eight-year-old daughter--who was spending the week with her brother's family--"the best mistake I ever made. If I were sixty percent sure I'd get her, I'd gamble again. But you know, I don't see myself in her at all, especially myself at that age. If I'd been my own mother. I'm sure I wouldn't even be here now; I was really a spoiled brat."

About this time--it was getting into the afternoon and the Mansion was waking up--somebody put a record on the stereo. "I have to dance to this," said Claudia. And dance she did--to the Isley Brothers, singing, "Who's that lady?" Who, indeed? As we said before, Claudia Lennear isn't at all sure who she is. And, she told us, "I'm not consistent in the way I act with others." But if her identity is in question--or in flux--she's not going to worry about it. "I've been getting by so far," she told us. If you call that getting by.