MUSICAL STAR TREKKIN' WITH CAPTAIN KIRK'S KIN: LORNE SHATNER-FRIEDENBERG

MUSICAL STAR TREKKIN' WITH CAPTAIN KIRK'S KIN: 

LORNE SHATNER-FRIEDENBERG 

As a child Lorne Shatner-Friedenberg’s claim to fame was his universe jumping, time-travelling, space-jockey uncle, Star Trek’s Captain James T. Kirk (or William Shatner as he is known in earthtime).

 Canadian born, Montreal Quebec resident Lorne has moved on from those halcyon days and the man who considers Hawaii as his unofficial second home has long since tapped into the lucrative world of Children’s Entertainment and is finding his own fame.

Entertaining our offspring is big business; from the lavish celebrations witnessed on MTV’s My Sweet Sixteen series where there are enough tiaras and tantrums to rival even the great Elton’s notorious mood swings to the more affordable cupcake and soft drink fuelled ‘kiddie discos’ that have taken hold of all the world’s cities and suburbs. What do kids want now that we finally know Bozo the Clown scares the beejeezus out of us all?

Lorne knows the classic formula that has been his cornerstone; music and sing-a-longs.

In fact so well does he know his craft and his audience that for over 25 years he has been one of the top sought after children’s party entertaining talents in his affluent home city of Montreal.

Now the children that he entertained in the beginning of his career are booking him to work his feelgood magic on a whole new generation of their own toddlers.

With the release of his new CD of classic songs for youngsters and some of his own original compositions Peter Jarrette sits cross legged at the feet of this popular troubadour to find out how he does what many of us can’t seem to easily do…entertain our children.

PJ: Lorne, I read that you began entertaining professionally with your music in 1988. What had you done previously in your working life and has music always been a significant part of your world? Did you study voice and music along the way?

In my previous incarnation, I was a college math tutor. It allowed me a lot of free time to further explore my love of cabaret and musical theatre. To that end, I was in a cabaret show and was noticed by a beautiful young woman who came backstage after and said “Hey that guy Lloyd has a really good voice” and I screamed back “It’s Lorne”. This was 1987 and long story short we became singing partners known as Toony Loonz (People often asked, who's the Toony, and who's the Loon?.... well, I was always the Loon, so when I went solo, Loony Lorny seemed a very logical monachre).

I did study music theory and clarinet for a while at college but never seriously studied voice. I have always sung since performing “All alone went Jerry” at a kindergarten presentation for parents. I even did a three year stint with the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal Chorus from 1993-1996.

PJ: How did your start in the children’s entertainment industry come about and who or what was your musical inspiration?

I was performing in “Barnum” at Montreal’s Centaur Theatre in the summer of 1988 and backstage, Joanne Cutler was helping to apply the clown makeup. She knew I had daytime availability, that I played guitar, she liked my voice and look, and asked would I be interested in entertaining children with her? At that moment, she had a 20-month old son and had been to many birthday parties with sub-par entertainment and felt with the right partner she could do a far better job. We debuted at her son's 2^nd birthday party (he's now almost 28) and never looked back.

As for musical inspiration, the Beatles, Cat Stevens, Carly Simon, Carole King come to mind. The main children’s entertainer that fascinated me as a child and whose personality I attempt to channel is a guy (well known in Canada) called THE FRIENDLY GIANT. He had a 15-minute TV show daily full of music and singing that I absolutely loved. You could say I see myself as a modern-day friendly giant.

PJ: Montreal is one of Canada’s great bilingual cities. Do you entertain in both French and English?

No, my repertoire is primarily English though I do have two or three French songs I throw in. However, at Christmas/Hannuka time, I have several French songs that I include for any bilingual crowd.

PJ: Tell us about the new CD. Who have you collaborated with in making it and what songs can we look forward to playing for our hyperactive young ones? Tell us too about the original compositions of yours that feature on the CD. Who created the cover art?

Joanne and I wrote a bunch of songs and put out our own CD, recorded rather hastily in 2000. It was very well-received by all the people at our classes and parties, but try though we did, it never went beyond that.

I met Mitch Magonet when he brought his younger daughter to a class of mine and we quickly realised we were cousins (yeah he’s a Shatner too!). From the get-go he said “you should be recording, you have such a wonderful style and personality, your warmth really comes through”. That began a few meetings between us to try and organise getting the project going. Mitch has a Broadway-bound show called “Rio” in the works and became extremely busy with that project, so our collaboration temporarily was put on hold.

Eighteen months later, we met up again and decided to really go for it! Mitch single-handedly orchestrated, produced and played every song on the CD. In a word, he is brilliant! We decided to imitate a typical class that I would give to the babies and mothers (Mom and Tot Classes) to capture my true personality and warmth. In my classes I always mix a few of my original songs with songs from my own childhood. Obviously honed over all these years, I don’t just sing ‘em, I really perform them! So on my CD, you’ll find old classics like OLD MCDONALD HAD A FARM, YOU ARE MY SUNSHINE, I’VE BEEN WORKING ON THE RAILROAD, OH SUSANNA, THIS OLD MAN etc along with four of Joanne’s and my original compositions, namely KERRY THE KANGAROO, I LOVE DOGS, RIDIN’ ON THE BUS and MACARONI AND CHEESE. I LOVE DOGS was written in my backyard in the early nineties with my wonderful dog Charles at my feet. The others were more collaborative efforts with the beautiful and talented Joanne Cutler.

Cover art was done painstakingly to the letter by one of my dearest friends in the world, Jonathan Donoghue, an optician in Galway, Ireland. I had a concept in mind and never having done anything in the graphic arts world before, Jonathan submitted and re-submitted and honed and re-honed until it was exactly what I wanted. He worried when submitting this to the company who produced the CD that things would go wrong but with his wonderful computer skills was able to supply exactly what was needed. His overall effort was nothing short of Herculean, as witnessed in the result.

PJ: I assume that birthdays are a great part of your bookings but are there any other events or celebrations at which you perform?

As I said, Christmas/Hannuka and basically any holiday or festival type of event hire me, but the bread and butter of my career is weekly groups in daycares, nursery schools, play centres, churches, synagogues and private homes. These people hire me to come at a given day and time each week for a number of weeks and I bounce from place to place. I can do up to 15 of these a week in addition to the parties. For the past 8 years, a now-established group called MUMMIESLIST has engaged me for MUSIC IN THE PARK which started with just me in one park 8 years ago. It now puts me in four parks and has hired many other musical and dance entertainers. Great fun for the audience to come to different parks at different times of the day and to entertain kids throughout the summer.

PJ: Have you ever had any really difficult bookings, tough audiences and if so how do you deal with those situations?

In our earliest days, Joanne and I, wallowing in our inexperience were slapped from behind, shot at with pop guns, had many things thrown at us, and were cajoled by non-enthusiastic five-year olds and often came away somewhat bruised (ego and body). As you can imagine as time progressed you just get better at dealing with what you have to deal with. Fast forward 25 years and there is honestly no situation I can’t and don’t handle.

PJ: What about the adults, parents and older family members, have you ever had any who were difficult to deal with?

There has been a mother or two over the years that were a little …. ahem ….. colourful! Example - one rather wealthy mom had her nanny arrange with me where, when, how, why, jump through what hoop etc and then the day before the appointed time, calls me and says “What do you do for that much money? Spit nickels?” to which I answered “Oh, I just entertain the heck out of your kids”. Her response “Oh, this I've got to see!”. I came, I kicked ass, did a hell of a party and instead of saying “Yeah, you were worth it” she hands me my fee and with a pursed look on her lips, she said “As agreed”.

PJ: Would you say that psychology is a great part of the whole experience?

Oh absolutely! Within my warmth and what I hope is my charm, I definitely bend my words and intonation in ways to entice my very young listeners (and their parents). So far, so good!

PJ: What type of events and bookings do you find most enjoyable to you and why?

I guess I would have to say the Christmas/Hannuka bookings that I do. The atmosphere is so very festive and people are always in such a great mood at that time of year. I include many very familiar Christmas and Hannuka tunes so kids as well as adults are singing along and tapping their toes. It’s really very rewarding.

PJ: Are there other genres of music you enjoy performing besides songs for youngsters?

In my misspent youth, I certainly enjoyed the folksier side of guitar playing, having grown up with artists mentioned above and many others. In my twenties and thirties, I appeared in many Broadway-style shows, so I’ve always enjoyed performing those songs to this day.

Now though, I must admit that since I play guitar (and teach guitar to 9-12 year olds) for a living, at the end of my work day, my guitar rests comfortably in the trunk of my car.

PJ: Have you ever thought about writing a song about a starship captain???

First of all PJ, let me clarify that William Shatner is my cousin not my uncle (I get asked a lot if he is my uncle, brother, nephew, sister's cousin's nephew, etc!).

Well actually, the germs of said song have been floating around my head for a very long time, beginning of which goes

'I'm just so glad I have a famous cousin, a famous cousin

One not a dozen

I'm just so glad I have a famous cousin, and Captain Kirk is his name

 When I watch the old Star Trek, it's plain as it can be

Out there 'mongst the space and stars, it's Captain Kirk you see.....

 I'm just so glad.... (chorus)'

PJ: For readers in Montreal how do they go about booking you and how can readers further afield order your CD?

In Montreal, please go to my website www.loonylorny.com, all of the information is there. CD’s are available on iTunes, Google Play Store and CDbaby.com.

PJ: Do your bookings ever take you further afield than the great city of Montreal?

Absolutely! For those of you that didn’t know, Montreal is an island. So within 100 km of that island there is a large population base and I am booked within that 100 km radius fairly often.

PJ: And Finally Lorne, now that you’ve got your feet on the rung of recording artist what further plans have you in the industry?

I see this as a very organic experience. So few people outside of Montreal have ever heard of me. Through processes such as this one, hopefully we can get the word out that I have put out a really high quality children’s CD. Beyond that, people need to hear it for themselves and make up their own minds. Ultimately I would love to appear on television, do the talk show circuit, do videos and many more recordings.

Thank you Lorne Shatner-Friedenberg for taking time to have this exchange with me and I think a number of my friends will be playing your CD to their lovable little Klingons very soon.