13 Sep, 2007 Chrissie Hynde (The Last Of The Great Independents)
Chrissie Hynde (The Last Of The Great Independents)
All of the artists I admire very few impress me more than Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders. To this day she is still one of the few artists that I would like to record with and I usually verify that whenever the question is asked. Somehow I am confident that I will get my chance, when the moment is right that is – and if the right song appears. All it takes is a little more patience perhaps! Well perhaps that and a little help from Charlie Burchill to make things go even smoother, Chrissie was always a big fan of Charlie. I can understand!
I was of course married to Chrissie for some years during the 80’s, we also have a grown up daughter that we both adore. In terms of further personal revelations that is about it I am afraid. And as it should be, Chrissie after all is an intensely private person and I respect that.
In any case anyone really wishing to know more about the real Chrissie has to do no more than listen to her body of work, for that is where her genuine character is lain open, bare, and full of honesty for you to either love or hate. But so difficult to ignore. Because she is after all a complete one-off!
I am hardly alone in my admiration and even artist’s such as Dylan, Springsteen, Neil Young, Patti, U2 to name but a few, all look on her as one of the greats! Good as any and miles better than most, it is above all her humility that makes her different from so much of the pack. Being more impressed by the value of the work of a humble street cleaner than any self proclaimed music industry mogul, Chrissie stands miles apart from even the smallest hint of pretension and is wholesomely unable to put up with bullshit whatever direction it is coming from.
All that apart so what was it with Chrissie that first hooked me in? Was it that utterly wonderful voice that makes so many others swoon. Or was it that tough/vulnerable look that gets copied every few months by another wannabe? Not at all! Ironically, all that would follow later as fate would have it. In fact it was the written word that did it for me. Let me explain.
As a teenager like many others in Glasgow who had discovered the soul searing, liberating force of rock n roll, I had become a devotee to the sound of crashing drums, electric basses and fuzzy guitars. Rock music more than a passion was a religion for me, and being so the weekly New Musical Express was looked on as a heavenly dispatch.
I cannot tell you how much I valued the arrival of a Thursday morning when on the way to school it was possible to buy a copy of that week’s “gospel”. Equally I am at a loss to express how much I hung on the words and thoughts from those young and rebellious journalists who at the time breathed something like fire into their weekly articles that featured in the NME. A cliche I know, but some weeks it really did seem that sparks were flying off the paper. That is how polemic it could be.
Giving me the warmest glow I identified thoroughly with them and their vision and their writing gave off a kind of impassioned heat that comes from the energy of people who have their smarts about them instinctively regardless of how inexperienced they themselves may be. They were all so naturally bright. So on it!
Hynde, then fresh in to London from Akron, Ohio (Where?) – was one of those journalists who featured. Yes, in those days she was writing about music rather than recording it, and along with her then boyfriend, the journalist Nick Kent – they seemed to light the way and others who wanted to understand much more about the kind of music that we wanted to listen to. It was that skill that first drew my attention to her in particular.
Intelligent to a fault, if that is possible. She seemed to know about everything. Therefore perhaps it is no surprise to find that she was viewed by some as a real bigmouth, and one that was heading surely for a fall. Plus being a female and being that”lippy” in a time where making rock music was pretty much a game for boys and boys only, meant that inevitably many were unable not to chuckle on hearing that Hynde of all people had not only started a band, but was deadly serious about it.
At any rate with the arrival and instant critical and massive commercial success of The Pretenders debut album – you would have to assume that it was Chrissie who ended up doing all the laughing.
It was a sensational debut album however, and I would suggest that no one was prepared for it being that good – except Hynde that is. She had struggled for years for the opportunity and was more than ready to step up now that the moment to show had materialized. Along with Martin Chambers, Pete Farndon and James Honeymoon Scott, The Pretenders seemed to make it all seem so easy and I cannot think of many other debut records that year or any other that even remotely comes near in terms of beautiful pop melodies and the most clear cut lyrics that pulled from the entire spectrum of the human condition.
Okay, Okay, maybe there has been one or two others, But being both so sunny and so dark, so new and yet full of all the classic touches, the Pretenders had it all. No more so than the lead singer with a voice that enabled you to not only get deep inside her heart, but also notice every fracture in her strong and yet so fragile being.
Continuing in that vein ever since, an entire catalogue of work has unfolded from her. One that thankfully includes so much sublime music to listen to. That is no exaggeration!
And yet Chrissie within her outlook, stance, and general all round take on the world has changed not a jot.
Never having sold out in any of her idealism she stands out completely as the real deal.
Still holding steady as a granite rock and absolutely authentic all the way to the core!
Long Live Chrissie Hynde!
Jim Kerr