The Lite Stuff The Critics May Turn Up Their Noses, But The Public Loves The Entertainment Offered By Many-Layered John Tesh

Pavarotti, Domingo, Carreras … Tesh.

The Three Tenors may not know it yet, but they’ve got company.

He doesn’t sing opera’s great arias.

He writes and performs background music for sports events.

His chosen venue isn’t a Roman ruin in Italy.

It’s Red Rocks, Colo.

He’s not into white-tie concert attire.

He wears mauve tails.

Known to millions as the booming blond anchorman on TV’s “Entertainment Tonight,” he’s now reached millions more as the star of “John Tesh: Live at Red Rocks.”

The No. 1 fund-raiser during PBS’s besieged begathons last month featured Tesh at the piano, the Colorado Symphony Orchestra behind him, and gymnastic accompaniment by ex-Olympians Nadia Comaneci and Bart Conner.

So popular was the 90-minute spectacle that Judge Lance Ito requested it for the O.J. jurors.

Objection! How did this happen?

How did John Tesh become this latter-day Liberace, this male Kathie Lee?

He’s huge - in that uniquely ‘90s, multimedia way.

When he’s not dispensing infotainment on “E.T.,” he’s climbing the Billboard charts or hawking boxed sets of his EZ-listening CDs on QVC, where last November he sold 90,000 units in 90 minutes.

When he’s not nibbling his actress wife Connie Sellecca’s ear on the cover of People, he’s co-hosting a “Hidden Keys to Loving Relationships” infomercial.

When he’s not introducing “West Side Story” on TNT, he’s interacting with fans on the Internet. To paraphrase Walt Whitman, Tesh is large (6 feet 6) and he contains multitudes.

“It always seemed like we were just scratching the surface of what John had inside,” says CBS Sports producer David Neal, who used Tesh’s music for the 1987 Tour de France. “This is a well that’s so deep. Everybody’s discovering how many layers there are to John Tesh.”

Layers and layers. Backstage at “Late Night With Conan O’Brien” last month Tesh was schmoozing with alt-rockers Dweezil and Ahmet Zappa, telling them how his drummer played with their late father, Frank.

When the Zappa boys went on, they confided to Conan that it’s always been their dream to work with John Tesh. On cue, big John swaggered onstage with a keyboard around his neck and said, “You guys know any Black Sabbath?”

After this improbable trio cranked out a hard-core version of Sabbath’s “Wizard,” Conan cracked, “Ladies and gentleman, you’re seeing a whole new John Tesh tonight!”

Making the 43-year-old cheesemeister look cool was a PR coup, like Tony Bennett going on MTV. After the show, Dweezil came by Tesh’s dressing room, shouting, “That was awesome!” They traded phone numbers.

Tesh is hip to his squareness. “Reviewers hate me,” he acknowledges, stretching his gangly frame in the tiny “Conan” dressing room. “Because I’m the guy on ‘Entertainment Tonight.”’ The Minneapolis Star Tribune called him “dreadfully unsoulful.”

Sports producers have another name for his made-for-TV tunes: Teshmusic. You’ve heard it on NBA pregame shows, the 1992 Olympics: elementary synthesized melodies embellished with grandiose chord progressions and superfluous pageantry.

The nine albums Tesh has released on his own, independent label have sold 2.3 million copies. His “A Romantic Christmas” went gold. He’s all over Billboard’s New Age chart. Tesh doesn’t even have to play; he can just stamp his name on records and they sell.

He’s produced two spinoffs under the heading of The John Tesh Project: “Sax by the Fire” and “Sax on the Beach,” which is number two on the Contemporary Jazz chart, right behind Kenny G.

The “Sax” series are instrumental covers of pop songs: Sting lite. The rest are pure Tesh - him doing his own compositions. Jock themes like “Tour de France” and “Ironman Triathlon” are his signature sound: Vangelis lite.

When Tesh launches into his Olympic-inspired “Barcelona” at Red Rocks, the crowd goes wild. The “stirring nature of the music” is what arouses Tesh’s mostly female fandom, says Jim Scalem, VP of fund raising at PBS. “‘Drama’ would be a good word for it.”

Tesh thinks it’s all about hitting their comfort zone. (Being a nonthreatening hunk helps.) “They go, ‘I want something I can play at home. I don’t want to get beat over the head. I wanna be inspired. Or I wanna be passionate. And I feel safe with this guy.’ That’s why I think a lot of people show up at the concerts. They feel like they’re not gonna get hurt by me. It’s like, ‘What could the guy on “E.T.” do to us? We’re not gonna go deaf or get spit on.”’

Now there’s a pitch for PBS: music to not get spit on by.

Tesh would be an easier target if he weren’t so nice. He’s self-deprecating and surprisingly caustic for a born-again Christian. He admits that after three years of saccharine overexposure, he and his wife have a “nauseating” image. Their premarital abstinence pact was a tabloid staple.

He won’t go near the subject anymore except to say, “It was just a personal decision for us.” Sellecca agrees. “I’m as sick of it as you are,” she says while breast-feeding baby daughter Prima in their lavish backyard overlooking the San Fernando Valley.

They met at a hotel gym in Palm Springs the way celebrities meet. “John?” said the former star of “Hotel” and many lesser TV series. “Connie?” said the star of “E.T.”

He sent a “Tour de France” tape to her room. She fell in love with his music first. When she finally said yes to marriage, he cried. The man has layers, OK?

And don’t think he just got handed the beautiful wife, the bulletproof BMW 740i, the multimillion-dollar “E.T.” gig. He’s worked it every step of the way, always triangulating music, sports and TV.

Born in Garden City, N.Y., he majored in communications and music (he can play) at North Carolina State. In 1976 he started at New York’s WCBS as a reporter. Two years later, at 26, he was anchoring the news, partying at Studio 54 and opening an Adidas sports store.

In ‘81 he switched over to CBS Sports and announced he was forming a rock band. He’s won Emmys as a newsman and for his Teshmusic. “E.T.” called in ‘86, and he did a 10-city tour as a keyboard player with New Age icon Yanni the same year.

“We clicked immediately,” says Yanni of his friend and protege. He dabbled in daytime TV but was fired from “John and Leeza,” now simply “Leeza.”

In 1992 Tesh started GTS Records, named after Tesh, Sellecca and Gib, her 13-year-old son from a previous marriage. A tireless self-promoter, he does endless interviews and will sign autographs for hours after a concert.

He approached PBS about getting a show into pledge-drive rotation, then shelled out $1.7 million of his own money to produce it. The temperature at Red Rocks dropped to 40 degrees and it poured rain the night of the taping.

Contractually, the orchestra could have bailed, but they stuck around, Tesh says, “because they knew it was my money and my little production company.” The audience wasn’t going anywhere.

“The toughest thing was trying not to cry onstage,” he says, oozing unfashionable sincerity. Maybe the secret to his hugeness is corniness. “It’s OK to be like that,” says GTS Records president Ken Antonelli. “You don’t have to be cool.” Just look at John Tesh.