Chrissie Hynde slides into a smooth French croon with her version of “Que Reste-t-il De nos Amours?”, the 1942 Chanson song by Charles Trenet. Throughout the breezy track, Hynde sweetly sings over jazzy piano, billowing strings, brushed drums and upright bass.
“Que Reste-t-il De nos Amours?” appears on the Pretenders singer’s upcoming covers LP, Valve Bone Woe, which also features jazz-inspired takes on songs from the Beach Boys (“Caroline No”), Frank Sinatra, John Coltrane, Nick Drake, Charles Mingus (“Meditation on a Pair of Wire Cutters”) and Ray Davies, among others.
“I’m not hugely interested in branching out into other musical genres, being a devout rock singer as such, but jazz is something I grew up around (thanks to my bro) and I’ve always had a soft spot for it,” Hynde said in a statement announcing the record, which she recorded with the Valve Bone Ensemble in London. “I often bemoan what I regard as a decline in melody in popular music and I wanted to sing melodies. Plus, I have a penchant for cover songs, it’s the surprise of singing something that I didn’t think of writing myself that turns me on.”
Hynde will perform much of the album with a special concert on Saturday, July 6th at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. She will also play two shows this fall in London: September 14th as part of the BBC’s Proms in the Park and November 24th during the London Jazz Festival.