Warren, OH – The Texas Tenors are celebrating its 15th anniversary this year, and Mahoning Valley audiences have been with the trio nearly every step of the way.
Marcus Collins, JC Fisher and John Hagen started singing together to compete on the NBC reality competition series “America’s Got Talent.” The group finished fourth in 2009 and was invited back to compete on its “Champions” editions a few years later.
Packard Music Hall was one of the first theater-sized venues the trio played after its original “AGT” run, and it’s been the Warren Civic Music Association’s most popular act ever since. The group brings its holiday show, “Deep in the Heart of Christmas,” to Packard on Tuesday.
“We’ve been to Warren many times and we just love Warren, Ohio,” Collins said during a telephone interview last week. “We love the venue. We’ve gotten to know everyone there, and they’re like family. We love how everyone who comes to the show appreciates the music and loves the different genres we do, and they’re always in the mood to have fun and enjoy the music.”
For Tuesday’s show, the audience will be able to enjoy seasonal selections mixed with some of the different genres from which the Tenors draw.
“It’s all the (holiday) favorites, and we have a couple of original songs as well,” Collins said. “Then we also have patriotic songs, inspirational songs. ‘Amazing Grace’ is going to be in that show, ‘God Bless the USA,’ along with ‘O Come All Ye Faithful,’ ‘O Holy Night.’ There will be medleys of classic Christmas songs, including ‘Little Drummer Boy,’ ‘White Christmas,’ ‘Silver Bells,’ ‘Let It Snow,’ lots of familiar things.”
Each one of the tenors has a specialty. Hagen has the operatic, classical background, and Fisher is billed as “the romantic tenor.” Collins is the “the contemporary tenor” so it shouldn’t be a surprise that his favorite Christmas song to sing isn’t one of the standards.
“I love ‘Last Christmas’ (originally recorded by Wham!),” he said. “I go out and I sing to folks and take selfies and dance a little bit with people in the audience, so I love ‘Last Christmas’ personally. As a group, I think our favorite is probably ‘O Holy Night’ or the original, ‘Favorite Time of Year.’”
The group enjoys singing Christmas songs, Collins said, and audiences seem to connect with those tunes on a more personal level.
“I think people do react differently to Christmas. It’s obviously very emotional for some folks, but it’s also very uplifting. It’s such a beautiful time of year. It’s our favorite time of year. And so we love presenting the Christmas show … I think folks just love uplifting music and music with a positive message. And our show is very positive. We always say there’s something for people from 3 to 103. There’s always something for everyone in the show.”
The group currently is putting the finishing touches on its third PBS special, which will be called “Faith and Inspiration,” which will be released in March 2025.
The relationship has been mutually beneficial. PBS stations frequently use Texas Tenors specials during pledge drives to lure new members, and the television exposure keeps the group in the public eye.
“People tune into public television because they know there’s a certain quality to it,” Collins said. “I think people tune in with a certain expectation to PBS, and we feel very honored to be a part of that.”
Personnel changes are the norm in many long-running acts. Collins said it helped that he, Fisher and Hagen started out as friends, but he believes the group reached 15 years with no end in sight because there aren’t any outside opinions to cause internal divisions.
“We created this group ourselves, and we run the business ourselves. We make decisions about the music we make. All of our decisions about everything — content of the show, wardrobe, what goes on an album, the arrangements — we do ourselves, so I think that helps. No one’s created this for us. We’ve created this ourselves, and we’re very proud of it, and we love what we do, and we have become like family, so not being together or not performing is not an option. It’s just who we are. We love the music, we love each other. We respect each other, and we have an appreciation for what we have, because we created it ourselves.”
Source: The Vindicator, Vindy.com
