Packed house sings along to Three Dog Night hits at Carnegie Homestead

A band with a serendipitously catchy name spotlighting its three lead vocalists once dominated American radio.

Three Dog Night scored 21 consecutive Top 40 hits during half a decade starting in 1969, reaching an apex of sorts when Billboard magazine named “Joy to the World” as the No. 1 pop single of 1971.

Fans hoping to sing along with all their favorites were rewarded at the band’s concert Thursday at a packed Carnegie of Homestead Music Hall, where co-founding singer Danny Hutton led a score of tunes that proved his pipes still function fabulously for an octogenarian.

Fifty-six years after the guys in a group called Redwood decided to change the name — as listeners from that era are well aware, a “three dog night” refers to a particularly chilly Australian evening — Hutton stands as the sole original member.

But deep into the 21st century, he’s joined by a talented cast, including vocalist David Morgan, guitarist Paul Kingery and Tim Hutton, Danny’s son, on bass.

While the bulk of Three Dog Night’s recordings carry other artists’ songwriting credits, the three-throated combo of Chuck Negron, Danny Hutton and the late Cory Wells put a distinctive stamp on compositions by everyone from future movie-theme king Randy Newman (“Mama Told Me Not to Come,” “My Old Kentucky Home”) to a young John Hiatt (“Sure as I’m Sittin’ Here”).

Hiatt may have been barely out of his teens when he penned the 1974 hit, but Morgan drew on the glass-half-full, half-empty motif of lyrics — “Git up, ya git down/Ya git lost and then ya git found” — to poke some fun at his 76-year-old self in a pre-song monologue.

Plenty of audience members certainly could identify with his stories of having both hips replaced and failing to adjust completely to 21st-century technology.

While the hits kept coming throughout the performance, a few under-the-radar selections made their way into the setlist, such as “Play Something Sweet (Brickyard Blues)” from Three Dog Night’s 1974 album “Hard Labor,” covering master songsmith Allen Toussaint.

And the stunningly gorgeous “Prayer of the Children,” which Danny Hutton introduced as a track on a new album to be released in the summer, transfixed the crowd with five-part harmonies in basically an a cappella arrangement.

For those inclined toward the Three Dog Night’s heavier side — Hutton noted how the band is difficult to categorize and actually charted under several different genres, Easy Listening included — the rendition of Russ Ballard’s “Liar” rocked the house, with Kingery and keyboard player Howard Laravea leading the charge.

What may have been of particular interest to veteran concertgoers was Hutton’s account of how decision makers at ABC Dunhill, the band’s first record label, called the shots in selecting a debut single, “Nobody.” It flopped.

Meanwhile, disc jockeys picked up on an album track that went on to launch Three Dog Night’s path to stardom, its melancholy cover of Harry Nilsson’s “One.”

The biggest of the big hits came a few years later, and fittingly, the band closed Thursday’s show with everyone in the audience belting out:

“Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea/Joy to you and me”

As a bonus, Milwaukee musician Trapper Schoepp opened the evening armed with an acoustic guitar and an energetic mix of original songs and covers, including a heartfelt rendition of Warren Zevon’s “Keep Me in Your Heart.”

The originals included, believe it or not, a tune for which he received co-songwriting credit with Bob Dylan, after Schoepp fleshed out a tune that the erstwhile Mr. Zimmerman started six decades ago.

Schoepp’s latest album, “Siren Songs,” came out in April and features tracks on which he plays a vintage Martin guitar that once belonged to none other than Johnny Cash.

And even though Trapper is somewhat — well, quite a bit — younger than the majority of the Carnegie Homestead audience members, they were appreciative enough not to save all their applause and cheering, and there was plenty of it, for the headline act.