Hynde, Chrissie (1951—)

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Hynde, Chrissie (1951—)

American rock musician and leader of the rock band The Pretenders. Born on September 7, 1951 in Akron, Ohio; daughter of Bud Hynde (a telephone company employee) and Dee Hynde; attended Kent State University, late 1960s; married Jim Kerr (a rock musician), in 1984 (divorced 1989); married Lucho Brieva (a sculptor), in 1997; children: (with Kinks frontman Ray Davies) Natalie Rae (b. 1983); (with Kerr) Yasmine (b. 1985).

Chrissie Hynde was born on September 7, 1951, in Akron, Ohio, the second child of Bud and Dee Hynde . Her adolescence coincided with the British invasion sparked by the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, and she became enamored of the rock 'n' roll scene. Bored with high school, Hynde spent her youth attending concerts in Cleveland, Ohio, and playing in garage bands. Her career as a rhythm guitarist began when she took up the baritone ukulele at age 16. She began songwriting and practiced her vocals by singing loudly in a closet.

In the late 1960s, Hynde enrolled at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, as a fine arts major. There she participated in the infamous Kent State antiwar protest during which National Guardsmen shot and killed four students. She dropped out of school and worked a variety of jobs, including a stint waiting tables which she quit because it conflicted with her militant vegetarianism. Eager to become a part of the growing London punk scene, she moved there in 1973 and continued taking low-paying jobs (such as cleaning Keith Richards' house) while trying to break into the music business. Throughout the mid-1970s, Hynde bounced between England, the United States and France, performing with a variety of bands and meeting such punk idols as Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols, and Mick Jones of the Clash.

In 1978, Hynde got her chance to head a group of her own. Together with the British musicians Pete Farndon, James Honeyman-Scott, and Martin Chambers, she formed the group The Pretenders, named after a song by the Platters. They released their self-titled debut album in 1980 to enormous critical acclaim. Hynde earned much of the praise for the album's success as the principal songwriter, guitarist and gutsy voice behind the blunt lyrics. With the album hitting the top of the charts and the title of "Best New Artists" under their belts (courtesy of the editors of Rolling Stone magazine), The Pretenders appeared to be well on their way to stardom.

The early 1980s proved to be rocky for the band, however. Their quick follow-up album, Pretenders II (1981), did not match the debut album's power or popularity. In addition to the commercial loss, internal strife and drug abuse resulted in the dismissal of Farndon from the band. Then Honeyman-Scott and Farndon died from drug overdoses in 1982 and 1983, respectively. Hynde managed to hold things together with the addition of two new members, and The Pretenders released their third album, Learning to Crawl, in 1984. The title of the album referred both to The Pretenders' struggles as a newly constituted band, and to Hynde's toddler daughter, Natalie Rae (whose father was Ray Davies of the Kinks). The band continued to undergo staff changes over the years, but Hynde remained the center of the group.

Three months after the end of her four-year relationship with Davies, Hynde married Jim Kerr, singer for the Scottish band Simple Minds. A year later, she gave birth to her second daughter, Yasmine. Motherhood did not halt her career: in 1986 The Pretenders released the album Get Close and a year later embarked on a world tour.

Another four years passed before the band released the album Packed!, although a collection of singles had been produced in 1987. During the hiatus, Hynde and Kerr divorced, and Hynde set up household in London with her two daughters, four cats, and a nanny. During the 1990s, The Pretenders slowed their recording pace even further, waiting until 1995 to produce another album, Isle of View. A critically hailed acoustic blend of The Pretenders' music and a string quartet, the album did not sell well. Hynde, never one to let other people's opinions dictate the course of her career, has continued to write the same cutting lyrics and hard-edged guitar riffs that put The Pretenders on the map in the 1970s. Their seventh album, ¡Viva El Amor!, released in 1999, reflected the South American influence of Hynde's new husband, Colombian sculptor Lucho Brieva. Hynde and Brieva married in 1997 in a low-key ceremony in London.

From the beginning of her career, Hynde has been known for her passion, not only in her

singing, but also in the causes she supported. She was an animal-rights activist long before it became a popular celebrity cause, and contributed her talents to such worthy endeavors as famine relief for Africa. Despite her impressive body of work and her longstanding career as the queen of no-nonsense rock, Hynde prefers to identify herself more as a "stereotypical middle-aged, divorced cocktail waitress rearing two children in Ohio."