IT’S A FRIDAY EVENING in mid-May, and Chrissie Hynde is supposed to be kicking off a tour tonight in support of the Pretenders’ latest album, Hate for Sale. Instead, she’s stuck in her London flat, singing Bob Dylan’s “Standing in the Doorway” over the phone to the band’s lead guitarist for a covers project the two are working on. Her life, like everyone’s, has been upended, but you wouldn’t know it talking to her. “I live alone and I don’t have any pets, so I have all this time to mess around,” she says later. “I feel like I’m 15: no responsibilities, no pressure. I can paint and play songs.”
In recent months, Hynde, 68, has reconnected with her saxophone-playing brother, Terry, who lives in Ohio, and she frequently…
