Wayne Osmond, the vocalist, guitarist, and original member of the multimillion-selling family group—the Osmonds, famed for classics including “One Bad Apple,” “Yo-Yo,” and “Down By the Lazy River” from the 1970s, passed away. His age was 73.
Wayne passed away this week at a hospital in Salt Lake City following a “massive stroke,” according to a Facebook post made by his brother Merrill Osmond.
“I have never encountered a man with greater humility.” Merrill wrote, “A man with no guile at all.” “A person who was able to love everyone he ever met without conditions and was quick to forgive.”
Wayne Osmond’s Road to Stardom
Raised in a Mormon home in Ogden, Utah, Wayne Osmond was the second oldest of the musical artists and the fourth oldest of nine children. When Wayne, Alan, Merrill, and Jay performed as a barbershop quartet in the 1950s, their career took off.
Supported by singer Andy Williams, their fame developed in the 1960s, and in the early 1970s, they reached their height as a quintet, with younger brother Donny Osmond being the breakthrough star.
Donny was portrayed as the white counterpart to Jackson’s main singer, Michael Jackson.
Early in the 1970s, songs like “One Bad Apple” and “Yo-Yo” achieved Top 10 status, sparked parallels to the Jackson Five, particularly with the younger Donny’s high-pitched voice, and catapulted the family to an unprecedented degree of stardom.
In 1972, the Osmonds “produced the kind of teary, lip-trembling, shrieking scenes that recalled the early impact of the Beatles, post-Liverpool” when they arrived at Heathrow Airport on a trip to Britain, “where they were lucky to escape alive,” according to a reporter in The New York Times.
While Donny and Marie Osmond both had prosperous solo and brother-sister careers, the Osmonds’ fame waned by the middle of the 1970s.
Wayne Osmond reformed as a country act in the 1980s with Alan, Merrill, and Jay. They had a few singles, such as “I Think About Your Lovin’.
In 1974, Wayne Osmond wed Kathlyn White. In addition to writing music that featured the 1972 song “And You Love Me,” a long, sorrowful homage to his bride, Kathryn White, a former Miss Utah whom he married in 1974, he performed a variety of instruments, including lead guitar and woodwinds. Five kids were born to them.
After receiving severe cancer treatment as a child, Wayne Osmond was informed that a brain tumour that he had would be fatal. He had a stroke in 2012, which made it impossible for him to play the guitar, Ms. Cook said. In the final ten years of his life, Mr. Osmond was with his family and his interests, such as fly fishing.
“I’ve had a wonderful life. And you know, being able to hear is not all that it’s cracked up to be; it really isn’t,” he told the Deseret News in 2018. “My favourite thing now is to take care of my yard. I turn my hearing aids off, deaf as a doorknob, and tune everything out; it’s joyful.”
The following people survive him: his wife, Kathlyn; Ms Cook; his four other children, Gregory Osmond, Sarah Hilton, Michelle Erickson, and Steven Osmond; and twenty grandchildren.
Additionally, his eight siblings—Virl, Tom, Alan, Merrill, Jay, Donny, Marie, and Jimmy—preserve him. According to Mr. Osmond, his faith was the constant motivator in his life, even while his musical profession defined him.
“We’re Latter-day Saints, and we have a very high moral and ethical code that we live by,” Mr. Osmond narrated to Deseret News in 2004. “It’s not something that’s forced upon us. Anyone can do what they want to”.