Folk, Young Folk Powerful Combo : Success in records for children, blowin’ in the Canadian wind, is extending south

Where have all the ‘60s folk singers gone?

If they’re a certain select group, they’ve gone gold and platinum in Canada and recently become a big part of a new bonanza for U.S. record companies--as children’s recording artists.

It began with Raffi, whose noisily enthusiastic young fans have earned him the title the Springsteen of the preschool set. Then came Sharon, Lois and Bram, making their music a television success on the Nickelodeon cable channel.

Now Fred Penner, the third member of Canada’s “Big Three” in children’s entertainment, is stepping up his U.S. invasion.

Penner, whose latest album, “Fred Penner’s Place,” just won a Juno (Canada’s Grammy equivalent), is making a combined Canada/United States tour, along with musician Len Udow. Penner’s two Southland stops are Paul Revere Junior High School Auditorium on the Westside at 1 p.m. today and San Diego’s Mandeville Auditorium at 7 p.m. Wednesday.

Tall, lanky and bearded, Penner, 42, has an easy warmth and professionalism in performance that attract adults and children alike. Contemporary songs of fun and family--”Grampa Song,” “Ebenezer Sneezer” and “The Gooey Duck” to name a few--blend comfortably with traditional favorites such as “This Old Man” and “It Ain’t Gonna Rain No More.”

Reached at his Winnipeg home, Penner said his life experiences have wedded him firmly to children’s music.

“I had a sister who was a Down’s Syndrome child,” he said. “I was 13 or 14 when I learned from her about a child’s sensitivity to music.

“She would get so intensely involved in the lyrics, the sound of a tender song, that after it was over, she’d plop down on the floor for a few minutes and cry.”

That memory surfaced when Penner, as a folk singer in his mid-20s, was a child-care volunteer working with disturbed and handicapped children in residential treatment centers.

“I’d bring my guitar,” he said, “and sometimes at bedtime I’d sing them lullabies, and I’d see the music make a definite connection; it is fundamental to the human rhythm.”

Penner’s road to a career in children’s entertainment took a few detours, however. The arts were secondary to the economics and psychology degrees that he earned in college. “I never knew what I wanted,” he said.

“Through high school and university, it was always, ‘What is this all around me? Where do I fit in?’

“One day I woke up and realized that the time I’d spent working on extracurricular theatrics and music was more important to me than anything else I was doing.”

Music became Penner’s foundation. He continued singing folk music, worked as an actor, and co-founded a music and comedy touring company. In 1978, he helped set up Sundance, a children’s dance theater, with his wife, Odette Heyn, a dancer/choreographer with Contemporary Dancers, Canada’s oldest modern dance company.

Sundance productions, based on songs that Penner wrote, led to his first album, “The Cat Came Back,” in 1979. “It all fell into place then,” Penner said. “I didn’t know what the end result would be, but I knew it was the most important work I’d ever done.”

The album garnered a Juno nomination and went gold.

He did three more albums, all on Raffi’s Troubadour label (“We amicably parted ways two years ago”) and wrote four children’s books. His latest album is on his own Oak Street Music label.

He has a daily television series, “Fred Penner’s Place,” and the marketing support of A&M; Records, which has four hot children’s recording artists under contract--the trio of Canadian big-sellers and Tom Chapin of the United States.

David Steffen, A&M; senior vice president of sales and distribution, expresses pride at being “in the quality children’s recording business.” The rewards are monetary as well: Steffen estimates that A&M; will sell “in excess of 1 million children’s records and cassettes this year.”

Mark Jaffe, A&M;’s director of children’s marketing, said: “We have all five of Fred’s albums. . . . There are more and more children in this particular age category, and parents are paying attention to the music they listen to.”

Their holding the purse strings isn’t the only reason that parents are important to Penner.

“ ‘Children’s concert’ is a misnomer,” he said. “ ‘Family concert’ is more accurate. It happens on three levels: “I’m on stage communicating the songs and directing my own energies at the child and adult.”

In the audience “meanwhile, there’s a dialogue happening between the parent and the child. The parent may help the child repeat a chorus or do a certain activity I’ve asked them to do.

“Then they leave and hopefully maintain the dialogue on the way home by remembering the concert together.”

Penner doesn’t do message songs. “My philosophy is that if you raise a happy, caring, secure human being, they will inevitably follow a path that is globally sensitive,” he said, then paused. “Oh, yikes! What did I just say?” he said with a laugh at his statement’s weightiness.

“My songs attempt to make a connection,” he tried to explain. “If I sing about a pet that gets lost, a type of food--those are universal topics for children.”

He became thoughtful. “Entertainment for children is often thrown aside as child’s stuff,” he said. “You make a couple of funny faces, sing a couple of songs and that’s supposed to be it.

“But it’s not to be taken lightly. You’re dealing with the most sensitive part of humanity--the young, impressionable mind. If you don’t take that seriously, you are potentially causing damage.”

Penner’s own commitment to his three children--ages 7 and 3 years and 5 months--has prevented him from following the extensive touring schedules of Raffi, and Sharon, Lois and Bram.

“I’m taking it slow and steady,” he said. “This is a lifetime career; it’s just finding the energy and the time and the balance to make it happen.”