Biography
Claudia Lennear is an American soul singer and educator. Born Claudia Joy Offley in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1946, she began performing in the late 1960s as an Ikette with Ike and Tina Turner and provided backing vocals for artists including Joe Cocker, Leon Russell and George Harrison. She released her only solo album, Phew!, in 1973.
Lennear appeared as a secretary in the 1974 film Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. She was featured as herself in the 2013 documentary 20 Feet from Stardom, which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. She later worked as a teacher of Spanish, English and French at institutions including Mt. San Antonio College in California. In 2019 she was inducted into the Rhode Island Music Hall of Fame.
