Today’s classic song of the day is an overlooked ’70s soul track from an overlooked soul singer. The track is “It Ain’t Easy” and the singer is Claudia Lennear.
Claudia Lennear was a background singer, one of the ladies featured in the 20 Feet From Stardom documentary. She made her bones as an Ikette with Ike & Tina Turner, and later sang with Delaney and Bonnie and Friends, Joe Cocker (on his Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour and album), and Leon Russell. She was one of the background singers for George Harrison’s Concert for Bangladesh. She had relationships with David Bowie and Mick Jagger, and was supposedly the inspiration for the Rolling Stones’ “Brown Sugar” and Bowie’s “Lady Grinning Soul.” She was the secret sauce for a lot of hot artists in the early ’70s.
Claudia only cut one album as a lead singer, 1973’s Phew! It went absolutely nowhere and really wasn’t all that good; the producers (Ian Samwell on side 1, Allen Toussaint on side 2) just didn’t get what made her great and smothered her in too-busy arrangements. This tune, “It Ain’t Easy,” was side one, track one on that album. The song itself, written by Ron Davies and originally recorded by Three Dog Night, isn’t a bad song but it’s not great, even with Ry Cooder on guitar. What’s great are Claudia’s vocals, which show the unfettered power of her voice. She dives full-force into some high-energy R&B-tinged rock and roll, as befitting her time with Ike and Tina and Joe and Leon. It’s something to listen to, even if no one seemingly appreciated it back in the day.
By the way, the drummer on “It Ain’t Easy” was John Craviotto, who went on to later fame as a top-notch drum builder. I wasn’t aware that Mr. Craviotto was a studio cat before he started building drums, but apparently he made a name for himself playing for folks like Arlo Guthrie, Ry Cooder, Moby Grape, Neil Young, and Buffy St. Marie. (It’s the Ry Cooder connection that got him on the Phew! album; Ry played guitar on all the tunes on side 1.) I have a solid-shell DW snare drum made by Mr. Craviotto, and it is superb. Johnny C, as he was known, passed away in 2016.
Claudia Lennear continued doing background vocals until she left the business in the early 1980s. During that time, she had a bit part in Clint Eastwood’s 1974 film, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, and appeared in a pictorial (titled “Brown Sugar”) in the August 1974 issue of Playboy. After retiring from the music business, Claudia returned to teaching (she was a teacher prior to joining the Ike & Tina Turner Review), teaching French, Spanish, English, and remedial Math at Mount San Antonio College in California. After being featured in 20 Feet From Stardom she started singing again, mostly playing local gigs. She also performed at the 2015 memorial concert for the late Joe Cocker. She is now 79 years old and still great.
