(New York) Wayne Osmond, singer, guitarist and founding member of the family band The Osmonds, known for his teen songs of the 1970s, such as One Bad Apple, Yo-yo et Down By the Lazy Riverdied. He was 73 years old.
Published yesterday at 8:53 p.m.
His brother Merrill Osmond posted on his Facebook page that Wayne died this week in a Salt Lake City hospital after suffering a “massive stroke.”
“I have never known such a humble man. A man without any guile, Merrill wrote. An individual who was quick to forgive and had the ability to show unconditional love to everyone he met. »
Wayne Osmond was the fourth oldest of nine children raised in a Mormon family in Ogden, Utah, and the second oldest among musical artists. The siblings’ careers began in the 1950s when Wayne, Alan, Merrill and Jay sang as a barbershop quartet.
Their popularity increased in the 1960s after being supported by singer Andy Williams, and they reached their peak as a quintet in the early 1970s, with their younger brother Donny Osmond as headliner. One Bad Apple and other songs were often compared to the music of the Osmonds’ contemporaries, the Jackson 5, and Donny was positioned as the white counterpart to the Jacksons’ lead singer, Michael Jackson.
The Osmonds’ popularity waned in the mid-1970s, although Donny and Marie Osmond both enjoyed successful careers as solo performers and as a brother-sister duo.
In the 1980s, Wayne Osmond banded together with Alan, Merrill and Jay as a country group and had some hits, including I Think About Your Lovin.
But in the mid-1990s, he was diagnosed with a brain tumor and lost much of his hearing due to the surgery and treatment. A stroke in 2012 left him unable to play guitar.
“I’ve had a wonderful life. And you know, being able to hear isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, it’s really not, he told the Deseret News in 2018. My favorite thing now is taking care of my garden. I turn off my hearing aids, I’m as deaf as a doorknob, I don’t pay attention to everything, it’s really happy. »
Wayne Osmond married Kathlyn White in 1974. They had five children.
