Lennear was born in 1946 as Claudia Joy Offley at Providence Lying-In Hospital in Rhode Island. Her last name was changed after her mother married Leo V. Lennear.

Claudia Lennear (also rendered as Linnear and Lenier when she appeared on Stephen Stills' albums) is an American soul singer. Claudia Lennear has worked with many acts including Ike and Tina Turner, Humble Pie and Joe Cocker. She was part of a trio of backup singers for Delaney and Bonnie, that also included Rita Coolidge. Lennear's meetings with Mick Jagger and David Bowie are often cited as inspiration for The Rolling Stones' Brown Sugar (1971) and Bowie's Lady Grinning Soul (1973). NME editors Roy Carr and Charles Shaar Murray noted in 1981 that she was yet to reply in song to either Mick or David. However, in a 1973 article in Rolling Stone, she was quoted as saying that she wrote the song Not At All to inform Mick Jagger of his dispensability. Claudia Lennear was one of Leon Russell's Shelter People. She sang back-up vocals on Joe Cocker's 1970 Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour and live album, on Leon Russell and the Shelter People, released in 1971 and on George Harrison's The Concert for Bangla Desh.

In 1973, Lennear recorded a solo album of her own (her one and only) entitled Phew! (tracks 1,2 & 4 with Ry Cooder)