Chrissie Hynde’s May-December Friendship Yields

A Grammy-Worthy Collaboration

By John Voket

Pretenders co-founder and Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Chrissie Hynde says she has cultivated a less than approachable demeanor, after so many fans would constantly chase her and chat her up like they were long-lost friends.

“I mean, I’ve been chased down the street. I’d be coming out of the toilet, zipping up my fly and they’d be standing there waiting for me asking for an autograph wanting to stare into my eyes and trying to touch me,” Hynde told The Newtown Bee this week during an interview ahead of her September 24 Ridgefield Playhouse show with her latest musical collaborator, JP Jones. Hynde and Jones will be performing their entire new project, Fidelity, with The Fairground Boys, an ensemble Hynde described as ready to deliver “the best live rock and roll show on this planet.”

More than anything, this new endeavor chronicles an epic love story, albeit not a conventional one. Everything about the heartbreaking, but ultimately uplifting and fruitful artistic relationship between The Pretenders leader and the 30 years her junior Welsh-born singer-songwriter is contained within Fidelity’s 11 songs — from passion and desire to sadness and acceptance. The effort may be what commercially jaded music fans will be clamoring for as the album gets showcased on tour across the country.

And the material certainly has what it takes to be a Grammy Award contender, as members of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences begin weighing their choices later this year.

As the story goes, the gregarious by nature Jones approached Hynde at a party in London in November 2008 without any trepidation.

“I just wanted to tell her I thought she was awesome. I said, ‘Lechyd da,’ which means ‘Cheers’ in Welsh.”

A few drinks into the evening herself, Hynde remembered being approached by “some scruffy-looking guy.”

“He was pretty hammered too, but we managed enough of a conversation for me to ascertain that he was a musician who had recently gone solo after his band split, and that he grew up on a fairground in Wales.” And anyone who knows Hynde is familiar with her connection to all things “fairground.”

“I’ve always associated them with freedom and fun,” she said, “so when JP said he grew up near one, something in me lit up.”

The party was too noisy for the two to talk properly, so Hynde gave Jones her number, told him to call her sometime, then promptly left for a US tour supporting The Pretenders’ 2008 album Break Up The Concrete.

Inspired By Text

Jones texted her within a few days, wishing her “All the fairground luck for your show tonight.”

She replied: “Write a song called ‘Fairground Luck.’” He did, and sent it to her the next day.

“His voice stopped me in my tracks — what a voice!” Hynde said. “And the song was like something I’d never heard before. I was totally seduced.”

When Hynde returned to London, the two went to see the band Big Linda, three members of whom are now The Fairground Boys. When Hynde embarked on another Pretenders tour, Jones continued to send her song ideas and texts.

“One of them said ‘I don’t know why, but I think we could make a great album together,’” Hynde recalled. “No one’s ever said that to me before.”

After winding up The Pretenders final tour, Hynde returned to the UK in need of a “coming-down-from-tour-break,” as she puts it. She and Jones met up for coffee and Hynde surprised herself by impulsively suggesting a trip to Cuba. Which is where, on scraps of napkins and matchbook covers, the pair said the bulk of what is the new album came together lyrically and musically.

“I had just come off tour and I got this sense of urgency — and I had hardly met JP. He had sent me some songs which completely bowled me over,” said Hynde. “And I said to him, ‘Fancy going to Cuba?’ And a week later we were there.”

Hynde said one of the most inspiring aspects of the trip for both of them was the sense of isolation.

“No phones, no nothing. Just wandering around. You know Cuba is so simple, quite joyful,” she said. “It doesn’t have that grotesque, over-consumption thing you get almost everywhere else. There’s a sweetness about it.”

“Just a humbleness and people who are unaffected,” Jones added. “When they break something they keep repairing it and repairing it instead of throwing it away.”

No Initial Plans To Write

Hynde said although Jones brought along a beat-up old guitar, the trip was not designed to provide the newfound friends a venue to write a new album.

“We first started writing as we were walking down the street. We’d have an idea and laugh about it, or we’d be sitting in a cafe eating rice and beans and scribbling ideas down on a napkin,” she said. “We were really having a laugh, we didn’t go there saying let’s write. The songs came out more from conversations.”

“Even when we wrote the songs we weren’t thinking, wow, it was an album we could release,” Jones said. “At first I thought, this is so graphic that anybody who heard it would be horrified. But people really loved the demo, so we said let’s do this record.”

“Most of the people I played it for seem to think it’s a comedy album, so for me it was fantastic,” Hynde added, laughing.

Jones and Hynde said they understand that fans might come to this tour expecting to hear Pretenders material, but according to Hynde, “they can look forward to dancing, laughing, crying... a life changing experience, we hope.”

“We’re really excited because they are the best live band in Britain,” Jones said. “It’s going to be really different for everyone because it’s a man and a woman singing songs to each other with a rocking band.”

“At first, people may be shouting for me because they know me, but after two songs it switches over and all the girls are screaming for JP,” Hynde said. “We’ll do the whole album, and we’ll work out any other surprises [during rehearsal for the tour] in the studio.”

JP, Chrissie & the Fairground Boys (www.JPChrissie.com) will perform on Friday, September 24, at Ridgefield Playhouse. For tickets and additional information go to www.RidgefieldPlayhouse.com. The band will also play September 25 at The Fillmore New York at Irving Plaza in Manhattan.