By Carl Hoover

Tribune-Herald entertainment editor

“The 3 Redneck Tenors” has played Waco’s Hippodrome Theatre twice before, but producer and tenor Matthew Lord said no previous experience is necessary for watching Monday night’s show, “The 3 Redneck Tenors’ Christmas Spec-tac-yule-ar.”

“It stands on its own,” he said in a phone interview conducted while he was driving east on Interstate 40 in New Mexico with his fellow tenors. “It’s like Cannonball Run 2: You don’t have to see Cannonball Run to know what it’s about.”

Lord, a Juilliard School-trained tenor, came up with the mix of broad humor, goofy sensibility and serious musicianship that has delighted audiences of “The 3 Redneck Tenors” since he invented it on the fly for Grapevine’s Palace Performing Arts Center several years ago.

“The 3 Redneck Tenors’ Christmas Spec-tac-yule-ar”

Performance: 7:30 p.m. Monday at the Waco Hippodrome Theatre, 724 Austin Ave.

Tickets: $20.75 to $41.25. Call 752-9797 or go online at www.wacoperformingarts.org.

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"The 3 Redneck Tenors" — (from left) John Wilkerson, Matthew Lord and Alex Bumpas — bring the "Christmas Spec-tac-yule-ar" to the Hippodrome Monday night.

In “Tenors,” backwoods — well, the environs outside Paris, Texas — singers Billy Joe (Lord), Billy Bob (tenor Alex Bumpas) and Billy Billee (baritone John Wilkerson) put their operatic pipes through a variety of musical styles in search of a vocal groove that fits. That, in turn, leads to a Carnegie Hall concert and helps them rescue widow Edna Mae’s trailer home.

The Christmas spinoff, which debuted in Aiken, S.C., last holiday season, puts the three redneck tenors in search of Edna Mae, missing from the trailer home now decorated for the season. Their trek through her single-branched family tree finds a grandma run over by a reindeer, a mommy kissing Santa Claus and, well, you get the picture.

“It’s the same type of humor (as the original ‘Redneck Tenors’) and all the big hit Christmas songs, but there are not as many costume changes, so we feel better,” Lord said.

The evening’s second half puts the tenors in tuxes for a performance of Christmas carols and hymns. Working such Christmas classics as “O Holy Night” and “Silent Night” into a comic context just didn’t work, Lord noted.

There’s even an a cappella arrangement of Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker” that composer Craig Bohmler wrote for the tenors.

The tenors will reprise part of Monday’s Waco show for a New Year’s Eve concert with the Cleveland Orchestra. It’s the redneck tenors’ first orchestral concert, Lord notes with pride, and an acknowledgement of the singers’ legitimate musical chops. Lord has sung roles at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, the Chicago Lyric Opera, the Houston Grand Opera and the San Francisco Opera. Bumpas graduated from the University of North Texas’ respected music program and Wilkerson has performed on Broadway and on national tours.

“Redneck Tenors’ ” humor may be broad and family-friendly, but its music isn’t dumbed down, Lord said.

There’s more in the works, too. The trio’s appearance on television’s “America’s Got Talent” earned them national attention and has led to a development deal with LMNO Productions for a scripted series or reality show.

And after the “Christmas Spec-tac-yule-ar,” the tenors will find life on Broadway. Lord said that “The Three Redneck Tenors: Broadway Bound” already is under way. “We do a full seven-minute version of shows like ‘Les MizRedneck,’ ‘Lil’ Orphan Redneck,’ ‘Phantom of the Rednecks,’ ‘Fiddler on the Redneck,’ ‘My Fair Redneck’ and ‘OklaRedneck!’ ” he said.

The new production debuts Nov. 1, 2009, and will eventually make its way to Waco, Lord said, a city with a warm spot in its heart for “Rednecks.”

choover@wacotrib.com

757-5749