Born on September 7: Chrissie Hynde (The Pretenders), the electric elixir of youth

She was born in 1951 in Akron. The Pretenders singer is celebrating her 74th birthday today.

Along with Devo, the Ohio industrial city also saw the emergence of one of the craziest bands in American rock. But it was precisely the year they began spreading their bizarre theories and incongruous sounds, 1973, that Chrissie Hynde chose to leave the Midwest.

A keen reader of the music weekly New Musical Express (for which she would eventually write) and a huge rock fan, she decided to cross the Atlantic to be closer to her idols: the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and the Kinks (with whom she would have a daughter in the early 1980s). The singer's busy love life perhaps deserves a substantial chapter, but here we will simply recall the six years she spent with Jim Kerr, the lead singer of Simple Minds. Because, after all, it's her music that matters first and foremost, as well as her commitment to animal rights and PETA.

Before finally forming The Pretenders, Chrissie was forced to work a series of odd jobs. But, since she never does things like everyone else, she took a job as a saleswoman (in panties and stilettos) in the first boutique of designer Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren, the man who pulled the strings of the Sex Pistols. Before being renamed "World's End" on King's Road, the store was called... "SEX." It couldn't be more explicit!

After countless short-lived experiences, sometimes in Paris, sometimes in Cleveland, and then back in the English capital, the singer finally realised her dream by forming The Pretenders in 1978 with guitarist James Honeyman-Scott, bassist Pete Farndon, and drummer Martin Chambers. On the brand-new Real Records label, she first recorded a cover of the Kinks' "Stop Your Sobbing" in January 1979, followed by "Kid" and "Brass In Pocket," which went on to top the charts in Great Britain. The path was then paved for a self-titled debut album, a masterpiece of '80s English rock. Unfortunately, the rest of the story was much less rosy. Following the release of their second album, "Pretenders II," in 1981, the bassist was fired due to his drug addiction, while the guitarist died unexpectedly after a cocaine binge. End of story?

Not at all! 40 years later, after a few escapades under their own name (including the excellent "Stockholm" in 2014), the Pretenders continue to rock the stage all over the world. Having applauded them twice in recent years, I can assure you that they remain a sure bet. "Relentles" released in 2023; often written in the first person by the rock passionaria, does more than keep the flame alive. It reels off its choruses like an electric elixir of youth. While she recently faced some health problems, notably with her knee in 2024, Chrissie Hynde declared in 2016, in the columns of the English daily The Guardian: "I will make music as long as I feel like it, as long as I can sing, hold a guitar and stand up." A beautiful profession of faith!

(MH with Stéphane Soupart - Photo : Etienne Tordoir)

Photo: Chrissie Hynde with The Pretenders on the set of the show Génération 80 in Brussels (Belgium) in November 1981