Pretenders and Faith Hill to perform on CMT Crossroads live

The Pretenders and Faith Hill are set to perform live at the CMT Crossroads on Saturday night as part of the Pepsi Super Bowl Fan Jam festivities.

CMT Crossroads is a television show broadcast on Country Music Television and Palladia that pairs country music artists with musicians from other music genres. The show will be televised live from the Grand Prairie Texas, only the second time ever it has been shown live.

Hill and Chrissie Hynde, Pretender’s lead singer will do eight songs together, four from each of their repertoires, and they'll share in the singing, exchanging verses and choruses. The catalog of the Pretenders, Rock and Roll Hall of Famers, includes hits like Brass in Pocket, `'Back on the Chain Gang and I'll Stand by You. Hill, a multiplatinum Grammy-winner, has 13 No. 1 country singles, including Wild One, `'Piece of My Heart and This Kiss.

I'm crazy, I guess, said Hill in a recent phone interview. By doing it live, it just brings another whole element to the show. Chrissie Hynde expects a bit of chaos, but playing live is what she loves. She added that a gig is live and if you mess it up, you live through it unlike a recording.

The two artists had not met each other before but chatted on the phone recently and hit it off instantly.

Hill is an old hand with the Super Bowl excitement. She has been NBC’s voice for Sunday Night Football and has sung ‘America The Beautiful’ and the national anthem before at past Super Bowls.

Hynde, although an American, has lived in Britain for the past 40 years and prefers snooker to football and hence has little idea of the excitement and brouhaha surrounding the Super Bowl. “There's no other time that you have this type of energy in a city, said Hill. There's such a level of excitement and anticipation and an element of celebration and whenever you have those things in the same place, you want to hear music. You want to go to parties. There's festivities all the time.