IT used to take at least three weeks for Miss Lennear's cover to be blown on Google.

Now, courtesy of an Oscar win, the teacher of Spanish and French in a Californian college is well and truly busted.

Miss Lennear, aka Claudia Lennear, aka David Bowie's Lady Grinning Soul, aka Mick Jagger's Brown Sugar, is one of the stars of 20 Feet from Stardom, winner of the best documentary Oscar at this year's Academy Awards.

"It's a part of my life I would never deny," says Lennear when she recalls the way her students ask shyly if that's really her on the internet with all those famous rockers, from Ike and Tina Turner to Joe Cocker.

"It's probably the best thing that ever happened to me to have been in the company of these wonderful musicians. The things I've learned from them, the experiences I've had, the places I've travelled with them, has been something somebody can't plot."

Like the title of Morgan Neville's film says, Lennear, Merry Clayton (Gimme Shelter), Darlene Love (Phil Spector) and many another gifted backing singer spent their time so close yet so far from the spotlight and the riches that came with it. A reckoning was long overdue, and Neville's film supplies it.

"Nobody has had the courage to tackle this subject," says Lennear when we meet before the Glasgow Film Festival premiere of 20 Feet from Stardom. It is a week before the Oscar win.

"It's a matter of timing. This same subject 35 years ago, nobody would pay any attention. But women have become empowered over the decades. We still haven't broken through the glass ceiling but there's a lot of dents and cracks in it. We're getting there."

Photographs from the 1970s of Lennear in the studio or out with Bowie and Jagger show a glamazon of the glam rock era. Now 66, with her long hair cut into a schoolmarmish bob, she is still a glance magnet. That might also have something to do with the amount of laughing we're doing, especially when I ask if the former Ikette can still do the "Tina" dance and shake like a plate of jelly hitching a ride on a spin cycle. "Sure," she says, "but probably not as fast."

She can still sing, too, as seen after the Glasgow premiere where she was accompanied by the Glasgow Gospel Choir for Oh Happy Day. Allison Gardner, festival co-director, was among those moved to tears and recalls the event as one of the most memorable of the festival. On the back of the film's success, Lennear is also writing her own songs and working on an album. Before we get to that, the past is the country to be explored.

Lennear reckons she was not exploited to the same extent as some of the others covered by the film. As she says, she was paid, her name was on album covers, she toured (with Cocker among others), and she appeared on stage for the George Harrison-organised Concert for Bangladesh. In 1973, she also got to make her own solo album, Phew! Yet as the film shows, Lennear and her colleagues were fundamental to the success of others, particularly English rock bands influenced by the Delta blues, the gospel church, and other elements of African-American culture.

"It was fitting that they would want that kind of sound lent to their project because most of them couldn't produce that. That's not to diminish them, the sound they came up with was great, but they wanted more, they wanted something authentic."

For all that the film shows backing singers as artists in their own right, Lennear still attracts more attention for the stars she knew rather than her thoughts on a song's orchestration. Such is the burden of the muse, it seems. Although she must have been asked countless times about Jagger and Bowie, she answers with good grace. Yes, she was the inspiration for Brown Sugar and no, she does not feel she got the sticky end of the lollipop.

"They gave me notoriety, they put my name on the map. It was a wonderful exchange at the height of our friendship, it was a great gift we gave each other."

The same goes for Bowie and the song he wrote about her, Lady Grinning Soul.

"David also was a good friend. We hung out a lot together, exchanged stories, exchanged experiences, and found common experiences. Maybe from those conversations he was inspired and wrote something I thought was a clever piece of poetry. I really rather like the song."

Its lyrics, "She'll come, she'll go, she'll lay belief on you; but she won't stake her life on you," are quietly revealing of Lennear's attitude towards her famous pals. In Phew! there was also a song, Not At All, that was reportedly aimed at Jagger. "Did you think I'd go round singing the blues cause you're on the wanted list and I'm all alone?" it asked. "Not at all." She agrees that this independent, take 'em or leave 'em attitude was probably part of the attraction for them. "They didn't want someone who was leaning on them for whatever. They wanted to do their thing and they wanted you to do your thing, then you could talk about it at the end of the day."

I was surprised to learn that neither Bowie or Jagger had been in touch since the film, and that in general they only traded hellos with Lennear through mutual friends. Bowie has since rectified this. The New York Post reported earlier this month that he had telephoned her and said he wanted to write for her next album.

Phew! was critically lauded at the time, but did not go anywhere. "I could try to be bitter and say someone dropped the ball," reflects Lennear. "I could try to lay the blame. But ultimately it was my project. It could be fate, it could have been my destiny, that maybe that just wasn't the one to work. They usually say in the record business it's the third album that takes off, but I never got that far. So maybe it is still coming. But I'm always optimistic about things like that."

She takes the same attitude to life in general. "All the things I every probably wanted to do in life I've done to some extent. I'm a happy camper. I'm not ready for a pity party at all." Nor does she regret posing for Playboy magazine in 1974. Life is all about experiences, she says, and besides, she got to spend 10 days at the Playboy mansion in Chicago.

Before she was a singer, Lennear's childhood dream was to be a translator at the UN. In some ways, teaching languages has brought her full circle. But she is still determined to give this new album all she has.

"I'm definitely going to cut another record. Whether it takes off or not," she smiles. In the meantime, she will carry on enjoying the new light being shone on how some of the most famous records in pop history were made.

"Why not be enlightened? It's like when you read a book, don't you want to know who the author is?"

Yes, Miss Lennear, we do.

20 Feet from Stardom opens tomorrow