Adrienne Lee Clement 1950-2026

It is with profound sadness that the Clement family announces the passing of our beloved sister Adrienne Lee Clement who left on her journey to a new adventure on August 8, 2026. Born in Seattle, Washington February 10th 1950, Addie fought a courageous battle with Glioblastoma, including two brain surgeries, and passed peacefully and pain free with great care from her nursing staff on Saturday August 8th, 2026, at 6:00 PM.

Addie displayed an intense creative and inquisitive nature early, constantly exploring why things were the way they were. She was fiercely competitive, playing softball and football with the neighborhood kids on her block. At 12, she won the City of Palo Alto’s Duncan Yo-Yo championship, beating all the boys entered in the contest. She grew up in a musical family with mother Maggie, a jazz singer and father Carl, a jazz pianist in his early years. There was always music playing with the greats of jazz, blues and early rock playing long hours into the night at the Clement household. Addie and brother Rex sat on the living room rug and watched the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964 on the black and white TV and witnessed The Beatles for the first time. That was it for Addie. She knew what she wanted to do.

Picking up a guitar at 13, she was consumed with creating music. In 1965 she formed an all-girl rock band with her childhood friend Jan Whitaker. Called The California Girls, they began playing publicly in the Bay Area. An early gig at The Santa Rosa Civic in 1966, the band opened for second billed The New Breed, which featured a young bass player Timothy B. Schmit, later of Poco and The Eagles. The headliner was The Animals featuring Eric Burdon. Later that year, at University of California in Davis, they again opened for The New Bread with the headliners Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention. As Addie evolved, she joined Sacramento’s all-girl band The Svelts before founding her next band Wild Honey. Wild Honey left the Bay Area headed for Los Angeles, hopeful for a recording contract. When the time came to sign a contract, Addie declined to sign away her music publishing rights while her bandmates were willing to sign regardless of contractual conditions. She made the difficult choice to leave the band that she had founded, taking the name Wild Honey with her. That band became what would be later named Fanny. While in Los Angeles, she started doing vocals session work with Patti Quatro and Brie Howard Darling. They formed an outstanding vocal studio group for hire as the ”Nylons”. They also worked together on The Electric Light Orchestra’s album “A New World Record », including their hit “Livin Thing”.

Notably, Addie auditioned for The Rolling Stones in Los Angeles during their tour stop at The Forum in 1975. She played for hours with Keith Richards at the band’s mansion in LA. He loved her playing but couldn’t get over the notion of having ‘a chick’ in the Stones. As the 1970’s concluded, Addie would head to Iowa to form a band called Karizma with a local guitar player John Lake. It was then, through her manager’s connection with Willie Dixon’s manager, she would have the good fortune to bring the blues legend to Mason City, Iowa to play at The Stagecoach club with Karizma opening his show. It was that fateful evening Addie made her connection with Willie, jamming with his band during his set, stunning him with her voice and guitar pyrotechnics. At Willie’s invitation, Addie moved to Chicago to make recordings with him.

The Chicago years were legendary with Addie playing The Wise Fools Pub, Checkerboard Lounge, among other venues. At Kingston Mines, she started out playing audition night on Tuesdays, before quickly moving to Friday and Saturday night headlining status as word of « the blonde chick that burns on guitar and sings like Janis » spread through the city. During that time she went toe to toe, burning the blues with the greatest blues guitar players and performers of the time, including Son Seals, Fenton Robinson, Albert Collins, Albert King (who called her ‘Sista Addie’), Lefty Dizz, Eddy Clearwater, Phil Guy, Matt « Guitar » Murphy, James Cotton, Junior Wells, Willie Dixon, Billy Branch and Lafayette Leake, plus musicians that would come to jam at The Mines, including Gregg Allman and Dickey Betts from The Allman Brothers Band. The biggest rock bands of the day would pay homage to Willie Dixon when they played Chicago. And Willie would invite Addie to join him backstage at their shows including The New Barbarians tour with Ronnie Wood, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, Ian McLagan, and Stanley Clarke and The Allman Brothers Band at The Uptown Theatre and her good friend Lowell George at Park West Theatre.

As her time wound down in Chicago, Addie headed back to California. She played local bars in San Francisco giving legendary performances at Gulliver’s Night Club in North Beach, Bill Graham’s club Wolfgang’s and down the peninsula at the Keystone in Palo Alto

In her later years Addie continued her creative streak becoming an author, a builder of her guitar line “Lil Queenie » featuring the « Bitchcaster » model, a realtor, a day trader and still creating the music she so dearly loved. Adrienne Lee Clement is survived by her brother Rex Clement, her sister Diane Bass and her husband Belton Byrd and Diane’s daughter Michele Tomlinson, husband Greg Tomlinson and their children Rachel and Michael, her sister Angela Clement Gomez, husband Edwin and their son Griffin, and her cousin Kurt Schaeffer.

Addie will always remain as one of the earliest female groundbreaking stars in the music arena, who dared to follow her passion and amazing talents. She was the “real deal” as a stellar vocalist and guitarist. Addie played with many renowned musicians, who recognized her musical gifts, as she stood tall and with great integrity throughout her lifetime in pioneering her music, and rocking every stage she ever played on in her own transcendent style