Fred Penner takes stage during Winter Fair

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This article was published 23/02/2024 (806 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When Fred Penner takes to the stage in Brandon next month, he will have his guitar slung over one shoulder, armed with his popular songs for an audience that he says is his favourite — young kids.

“Making music for children has the potential of making a difference in their lives. And I think that’s where things really settled for me. The importance of being curious with children and bringing them along with you on a journey,” Penner said in a phone interview from his home in Courtenay, B.C., on Thursday.

Penner will perform during this year’s Royal Manitoba Winter Fair, which runs from March 25 to 30 on the Keystone Centre grounds.

Penner said he’s scheduled to do two shows on the 27th — one in the morning and one in the afternoon. The last time Penner was in Brandon was 2018, and when asked how many times he has played at the fair, he recounted, “This will be my fifth time.”

“I love Brandon. My dad was in the army, so he was at Shilo. And I have relatives in the area. Garry Winters was Brandon fire chief for years and years — he’s a first cousin. And other cousins lived and worked in Oak Lake and Gladstone, so I know that area quite well. So, I’m really excited to come back again,” Penner said.

The entertainment committee at the Provincial Exhibition of Manitoba is also looking forward to having Penner perform at the winter fair, said general manager Mark Humphries.

“We feel extremely honoured for him to be coming here,” Humphries said. “He’s a fantastic children’s entertainer, but now he’s entertaining the parents of this generation, which we find fascinating. The amount of Facebook comments and the reaction we got after we announced him was, ‘I want to take the kids to go see Fred.’”

Penner was born in Winnipeg in 1946. It was when he was about 10 years old, he said, that he learned about the power of music through his youngest sister Susie, who had Down syndrome, which causes delays in mental and physical development.

“Susie was essentially nonverbal, so music was really a vital part of our connection. We would listen to records together, sing and just make sounds. Music seemed to get right inside of her, and so as I started moving into my musical career, I always remembered that,” Penner said.

In the late 1970s, Penner started a children’s dance theatre company and was given the chance to record an album called “The Cat Came Back,” which included the single of the same name, a song that he has performed so many times, he has lost count.

“There is certainly a core of songs that I’ll do because I love to sing them. And I know the audience is always anticipating ‘The Cat Came Back’ and ‘Sandwiches.’ Those are number one and two requests, and have been for forever, so I will certainly be doing those and others along the way. Depending on the energy of the audience, I can go left or go right,” Penner said.

He is the kind of person who goes with the flow quite easily, he said, and is the lowest-maintenance act that any booker every had. “What you see is what you get,” Penner said as he laughed.

Penner, who called himself a septuagenarian — he will be 78 on his next birthday — said he also knows that a lot of his audience is made up of parents and grandparents who were once kids in the front row.

He sings to the kids with concepts that they understand and selects songs for the older generation while adding comments along the way, so everyone feels like they are seen.

“When I get on stage, I scan the entire audience. I look at the kids who are up front, I look at the families throughout the middle and the back, so everybody feels that they are part of this process because that’s really what this is,” Penner said.

“We are together at this moment in time. And this will never happen again, this combination of people at this moment is totally unique.

“So, I take that as part of my responsibility. This is something I want to share — a song, a story, a thought, a feeling and an idea. Something that you will take home with you, and it may encourage discussion with your family.”

Penner and his wife split their time between their homes in Winnipeg and Courtenay, a city of about 28,000 on the east coast of Vancouver Island. He has four children and when they can, he said, they get together and “sell tickets.”

“I’m not touring a lot; I’ll maybe do a dozen shows over the course of the year. So, playing is a real treat for me,” Penner said.

“My children and I have performed at the Burton Cummings Theatre in downtown Winnipeg. Every couple of years we’ll do a Christmas show. And all four of my kids sang with me along with a full band. We sold it out to 1,200 people at ‘the Burt.’ So, that was a blast.”

When asked if he thought kids are different these days when compared to 15 or 20 years ago, Penner said even though children may be learning with technology in ways never imagined years ago, the way he performs will never change.

“I try to approach the audience with the same core values that I’ve always had — the importance of family, the importance of consideration for others, of sharing a feeling, of paying attention, of being curious, and of love. Those things never change, they are constant.

“You still need to be loved and cared for, and that’s what I try to bring to each performance,” Penner said.

Fred Penner’s television show, “Fred Penner’s Place,” was on the air for 12 years, from 1985 to 1997.

He is a four-time Juno winner for children’s album of the year, was made a Member of the Order of Canada and Member of the Order of Manitoba.

Penner has also received three honorary doctorates — from Brandon University, the University of Winnipeg and the University of Alberta.

» mmcdougall@brandonsun.com, with files from Matt Goerzen

» X: @enviromichele