Wayne Osmond, singer, guitarist and founder of the million-selling family group The Osmonds, who were known for their 1970s teen hits as One bad apple, Jo-Jo and Down by the Lazy Riverdied. He was 73 years old.
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 never knew a man who had more humility. 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 ever met.”
Success with a group of siblings
Wayne Osmond was the fourth oldest of nine children raised in a Mormon household in Ogden, Utah, and the second oldest among musical performers.
The siblings’ career began in the 1950s when Wayne, Alan, Merrill and Jay sang as a barbershop quartet.
Their popularity rose in the 1960s after being backed by singer Andy Williams, and they peaked as a quintet in the early 1970s, with younger brother Donny Osmond as their breakout star.
One bad apple and other songs were often compared to the music of Osmond’s contemporaries such as the Jackson 5, and Donny was positioned as a white counterpart to the Jacksons’ singer, Michael Jackson.
The Osmonds’ popularity faded by the mid-1970s, although Donny and Marie Osmond enjoyed successful careers as solo artists and as a brother-sister duo.
In the 1980s, Wayne reunited with Alan, Merrill and Jay as a country group and had a handful of hits, including I’m thinking about your love.’
The singer had health problems in the 1990s
But in the mid-1990s, Wayne was diagnosed with a brain tumor and lost most of his hearing due to surgery and treatment. Due to a stroke in 2012, he was unable to play the guitar.
“I’ve had a wonderful life. And you know, what I can hear isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, it really isn’t,” he told the Deseret News in 2018.
“Now my favorite thing is to look after my yard. I turn off my hearing aids, I’m a deaf person, I tune everything, it’s really fun.”
Wayne Osmond married Kathlyn White in 1974. They had five children.
