07-09-2019, 20:42
Christine Ellen ‘Chrissie’ Hynde was born on this day in 1951, in Akron, Ohio, USA and was attending Kent State at the time of those dreadful shootings - her best friend's boyfriend was one of the four victims.
She was obsessed with bands from a fairly young age, very much into the hippie scene and counterculture revolution. Despite several early rejections and setbacks, she stuck to her vision and after a few false starts eventually made the big time in the UK with The Pretenders. She had survived working for, and associations with Malcom McLaren and the Sex Pistols, and the whole punk scene (which would have scared me witless), but for which she is grateful because it allowed a small window for people like herself to slip onto the scene. I suppose being a natural born questioner of so-called norms has stood her in reasonable stead throughout her career and I have a feeling she takes very few prisoners!
I was never a big fan, but setting preconceptions aside, I’ve listened to her solo album Stockholm which is good IMHO (if a little irritating iro some of the vocal timings). Neil Young plays guitar on one track and John McEnroe, of all people, is also a guitarist on the release!
She is in no way trained in anything musical, including voice, and apparently suffers from amusia, or tone deafness which isn’t great for someone in the biz! She reminds me of Tom Petty for some reason, and one has to hand it to her for persistence, which has seemingly paid off; induction into the Rock n Roll HoF, many and varied esteemed collaborations and the latest effort with The Valve Bone Woe Ensemble which is well done, even if it is a covers album, and jazz covers at that!
Ms Hynde is a committed vegetarian, an animal rights activist and a staunch supporter of PETA for which she is to be lauded, IMHO. She published an autobiography in 2015 titled 'Reckless: My Life as a Pretender', which probably pretty much sums it up! She is not the easiest of interview subjects, by all accounts, but I suspect that’s because she isn’t a hypocrite, is outspoken, and doesn’t try to gratuitously please anyone.
Here’s that track with Neil Young which is fairly grungy IMHO … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ozM_X5RQBU
And the title track from Stockholm (which was recorded there, hence the name)
She was obsessed with bands from a fairly young age, very much into the hippie scene and counterculture revolution. Despite several early rejections and setbacks, she stuck to her vision and after a few false starts eventually made the big time in the UK with The Pretenders. She had survived working for, and associations with Malcom McLaren and the Sex Pistols, and the whole punk scene (which would have scared me witless), but for which she is grateful because it allowed a small window for people like herself to slip onto the scene. I suppose being a natural born questioner of so-called norms has stood her in reasonable stead throughout her career and I have a feeling she takes very few prisoners!
I was never a big fan, but setting preconceptions aside, I’ve listened to her solo album Stockholm which is good IMHO (if a little irritating iro some of the vocal timings). Neil Young plays guitar on one track and John McEnroe, of all people, is also a guitarist on the release!
She is in no way trained in anything musical, including voice, and apparently suffers from amusia, or tone deafness which isn’t great for someone in the biz! She reminds me of Tom Petty for some reason, and one has to hand it to her for persistence, which has seemingly paid off; induction into the Rock n Roll HoF, many and varied esteemed collaborations and the latest effort with The Valve Bone Woe Ensemble which is well done, even if it is a covers album, and jazz covers at that!
Ms Hynde is a committed vegetarian, an animal rights activist and a staunch supporter of PETA for which she is to be lauded, IMHO. She published an autobiography in 2015 titled 'Reckless: My Life as a Pretender', which probably pretty much sums it up! She is not the easiest of interview subjects, by all accounts, but I suspect that’s because she isn’t a hypocrite, is outspoken, and doesn’t try to gratuitously please anyone.
Here’s that track with Neil Young which is fairly grungy IMHO … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ozM_X5RQBU
And the title track from Stockholm (which was recorded there, hence the name)
"The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us." ~ Bill Watterson