Wayne Osmond, who co-founded the Osmonds, scored four Top 10 singles with the group and was a regular on the hit variety show Donny & Marie starring his younger brother and sister, died January 1 in Utah after a stroke. He was 73.
The news was confirmed in a Facebook post by his brother Merrill Osmond, who wrote in part: “I’ve never known a man that had more humility. A man with absolute no guile. An individual that was quick to forgive and had the ability to show unconditional love to everyone he ever met. Until I see him again, know that he was loved.”
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Born on August 28, 1951, in Ogden, Utah, Wayne Osmond began singing with his siblings Alan, Merrill and Jay in a barbershop quartet called The Osmond Brothers during the late 1950s. The group was performing on the local TV show Meet Me at Disneyland in 1962 when they were seen by the father of Andy Williams, and they became regulars on the hitmaking singer’s NBC variety show from 1962-67.
“I put them on for one show — I thought they were cute,” Williams said in a 2005 interview with the Television Academy Foundation. “We stopped rehearsal so they come in and audition for us … and they were darling. The youngest one, Jay, had teeth missing in front. … And the audience went nuts. They came back for like six or seven years.”
Williams went on to say that the show’s choreographer Nick Castle, who taught the brothers how to dance, and “they were like sponges — they would learn everything.” He added that he suggested they get instruments and perform like a rock ‘n’ roll band, “So they did. … And everybody on the show, all the creative people, loved them, so they would help them. And they could dance like crazy.”
All of the group’s members also appeared as the Kissel Brothers in the 1963-64 ABC western The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters, starring Dan O’Herlihy.
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Joined by younger brothers Donny and Jimmy, The Osmonds signed to MGM Records in the early 1970s and stormed onto the charts with their first single. Coattailing the massive success of the Jackson 5 during the previous year, “One Bad Apple” hit the Billboard Hot 100 exactly 54 years ago today — on January 2, 1971 — and would spend five weeks at No. 1. Their eponymous debut LP peaked at No. 14 and went gold.
Listen to “One Bad Apple” here:
With Wayne playing guitar and co-writing some of the songs, the group went on the have three more Top 10 singles during the next three years: “Yo-Yo” (No. 3, 1971), the harder-rocking “Down by the Lazy River” (No. 4, 1972) and “Love Me for a Reason” (No 10, 1974). “Hold Her Tight” and the wild “Crazy Horses” both hit No. 14 in 1972. The group’s first five albums went gold in the U.S.
All six brothers also voiced themselves in The Osmonds, a Saturday morning cartoon series from holiday-special specialists Rankin/Bass Productions that aired on ABC from September-December 1972. “One Bad Apple” was its theme song.
The Osmonds’ recording career cooled in the mid-1970s, but its members became TV regulars again in early 1976 on Donny & Marie. Rising the variety-show wave and led by teenage siblings Donny and Marie Osmond, the series debuted as a winter replacement on ABC and was a moderate hit in the three-network universe. Wayne also executive-produced 20 episodes of the show, which bounced around the Alphabet’s schedule — from Friday nights to Wednesday, back to Friday and finally on Sundays — before ending in May 1979.
Multi-instrumentalist Wayne, Alan and Merrill Osmond also co-wrote a few songs included on the soundtrack to the 1978 big-screen comedy Goin’ Coconuts, which starred Donny and Marie Osmond. The movie bombed, but the accompanying LP went gold.
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The original Osmond Brothers band reunited in the early 1980s and turned to country music, which was enjoying a pop moment in the wake of Urban Cowboy. The groups placed nearly a dozen singles on the Billboard country chart, but only their first — “I Think About Your Lovin’,” credited to The Osmonds — made the Top 20.
The brothers continued to perform until Alan and Wayne retired during the late 2000s. He was diagnosed with brain cancer in 1997, which was treated successfully but left his nearly deaf by a damaged cochlea. He had a stroke in 2012 that forced him to quit playing guitar.
Wayne Osmand is survived by all of his performing siblings, of whom he is the second-oldest; his wife of 50 years, Kathlyn; their three daughters and two sons; and extended family.