A children’s musician performing at a university may seem like an odd idea, but not for local hero Fred Penner.

“It’s not a stretch at all, especially because the young people who go to university now grew up with me,” said the popular performer, who is scheduled to play the quad Sept. 9 as part of the University of Winnipeg Students’ Association’s Orientation Week festivities.

“There still is a strong group factor. You know: ‘We’re gonna go see Fred Penner, do you remember?’ ‘Yeah, the guy in the log, and the Word Bird?’”

Interestingly enough, Penner did not start out planning to be a children’s performer. He originally attended the U of W, graduating with a B.A. in economics and psychology in the ‘70s.

“Economics was the only degree that I could actually get a job with a B.A. So I had written my civil services exam and I was primed to be an economist with Central Mortgage and Housing Corp. Scary, scary.”

Then Penner’s sister and father passed away within a short time of each other. He decided he needed a change in his life, so he began playing music, touring across Canada along the bar circuit.

It was then that Penner met his future wife, Odette Heyn, and did some children’s theatre which lead to the offer to record his first album, The Cat Came Back.

Eleven albums, two Junos, countless tours and one popular TV series later, Penner gets a twinkle in his eye when asked how it feels to play for the countless people who grew up with him.

“It’s pretty incredible, actually. The way I describe it is: The circle is complete. Because I started in 1979 with the first album, and the TV series ran from 1989-1997, that’s a huge chunk of humanity (I) was connecting (with) in the time frame.”

The reaction to news of his show at the U of W has been great, says Kelly Ross, vice president student services with the UWSA.

“We contacted Fred Penner because we knew that he had sort of been doing some other shows that were more geared toward an adult audience,” Ross said. “Everyone knows Fred Penner, so we thought it would be a really good way to get students out to the O-Week events.”

Ross herself grew up watching Fred Penner’s Place and went to a few of his concerts when she was young.

“People are incredibly excited—he’s probably generated the most excitement around the (UWSA) office, for sure,” she said.

But what is Fred Penner going to play? The truth is, he’s not sure yet.

“[T]he music that I’m going to do on the 9th will pretty much be defined by the audience,” said Penner, who has gigs booked at universities all across the country this year. “I mean, I’ll get started and then there’ll be requests, and there are a few tunes that I expect the audience will want to hear… But it’s all about interaction and communication.

“The rule is: make sure you have a beginning and an end, and the middle will take care of itself,” he concluded. “So, The Cat Came Back will certainly be the ending, more or less.”

Published in Volume 64, Number 1 of The Uniter (September 3, 2009)