IN CONCERT
What: Fred Penner
Where: McPherson Playhouse, 3 Centennial Sq.
When: Saturday, 2 p.m.
Tickets: $40.50 from rmts.bc.ca or 250-386-6121
Don’t say the dreaded “R” word around Fred Penner. The beloved family entertainer, who turned 75 in November, said he still has plenty of gas in the tank.
“I don’t feel that I will ever really retire,” Penner said. “My voice is feeling better than ever, and I’m still feeling relatively vibrant. I’ll keep playing this game for as long as I can.”
The four-time Juno Award winner and member of the Order of Canada resumed his busy touring schedule in May, after nearly two years removed from in-person live performances. Penner spoke with the Times Colonist from Manitoba, where he was booked to perform at the Winnipeg International Children’s Festival. The appearance was part of a cluster of re-scheduled dates celebrating the delayed 40th anniversary of The Cat Came Back, his iconic 1979 album and song of the same name.
Penner’s anniversary tour was initially set for 2020, around the song’s 40th anniversary, but the Western Canadian portion of the trek was cancelled due to the pandemic. He has been clearing the postponed dates of his itinerary, with 15 shows during the past three weeks. The current leg of his trek comes to an end with a performance at the McPherson Playhouse on Saturday.
Audiences might see an uptick in Vancouver Island shows by Penner going forward. The Winnipeg-born performer recently purchased a property near Courtenay, where he now lives with his wife, Rae Ellen Bodie. The couple spent the bulk of their time there during the pandemic. Penner took to livestreaming during the time away from the stage, which he thinks turned him into a better singer.
“Doing a virtual thing, everything comes down [an octave]. You don’t have to project the song, so your energy doesn’t have to go as far. Out of that, I started lowering the keys of my songs, which fit my voice a little better. Now, I’ve pulled things back a little bit.”
Penner spoke often during our interview about integrity, and how his creative process is rooted in exploration. As for the assumption that songs for children must be dumbed-down in order to stick, he scoffs at the suggestion. “I always wanted to prod the listeners’ imagination through stories and songs that had a little more depth to them.”
Take the genesis of Penner’s signature hit, for example. The Cat Came Back was authored by American playwright Harry S. Miller, who filled the verses of the 1893 original with death and violence. Penner first came across the song during a jam session in the early 1970s, and instinctively knew the song could work, if he changed some verses along the way. Eventually, he omitted ones he felt were “a little too violent.”
Despite a successful career in television, on both sides of the border, and scores of humanitarian awards, The Cat Came Back is the song with which he is most often associated. Penner said he has zero problems with that. “A good song, whatever quality it has, is able to endure. People want to hold onto it, they want to learn it, they want to pass it on to the next generation.”
In the late 1990s, when his CBC show, Fred Penner’s Place, went off the air after 12 years, he returned to performing on the university circuit, where he had made his name in the early 1980s. He was surprised to see that his stock had risen to new heights.
“The generation who grew up with me were now on campus. So much of that music connected with kids in their most formative years. Personalities are formed within the six years of life, so if you hear a song then, you don’t forget it. It goes deep and it sits there, waiting to be rekindled at any point.”
To this day, audiences erupt at the first strains of The Cat Came Back, he said. “I never knew it was going to go for this long. I did it because it felt right, and the timing was good. All the pieces sort of fell together. But seeing the multiple generations coming back — two, three generations at least — it’s pretty bizarre and unbelievably delightful at the same time.”
At one point in the future, the cat won’t come back. Penner said he doesn’t think much of the forthcoming “third phase” of his artistic life and what that will entail, or when he will eventually step back from the stage. “I’m not looking to do the kind of touring that I did even five years ago. It’s about being more selective. But I don’t believe [retirement] will ever be a serious part of my life. I’ve been able to do this for four or five decades, so I guess I’ll be able to maintain it.”
