The Osmonds
 The
singing Osmond siblings from Utah - Alan, Wayne, Merrill, Jay and
Donny - had been performing together for nearly 10 years before
they caught the eye of a record company astute enough to realise
that The Jackson 5 in white would be a
good earner.
As soon as the ink was dry on the contract, The Osmonds went
into the studio to record One Bad Apple. The single went
to Number One in America for more than a month, selling over a
million copies.
It was shortly afterwards that the solo potential of the
group's 11-year-old lead singer Donny
was also recognised, and while The Osmonds racked up five gold
albums between 1971 and 1973, Donny's parallel career scored four
gold albums and seven Top 10 singles.
Then off the Osmond production line came sister Marie
and youngest brother, the well-nourished 'Little' Jimmy.
Curiously, after the initial flush of success was over, The
Osmonds (both solo and as a group) actually did much better in
Britain where Osmond-mania really got a hold in July 1972 when
Donny's Puppy Love topped the UK charts for five weeks.
Jimmy also had a solo Number One hit in the UK at Christmas
1972 with Long Haired Lover From Liverpool. Nine-year-old
Jimmy admitted in interviews that he had absolutely no idea where
Liverpool was, but became the youngest ever UK chart-topper, and
the song (which shared the UK Top 10 with Crazy Horses by
his brothers and Why? by Donny) became 1972s biggest
selling single. Sister Marie had her own hit with Paper
Roses in 1973.
When The Osmonds visited the UK in 1973, a wall at Heathrow
Airport collapsed from the pressure of 10,000 youngsters waiting
to see their idols. One girl was injured seriously and had to have
a kidney removed.
When a crowd rushed the Osmond motorcade outside their hotel
another girl had her hand run over. When the group performed at
the Rainbow, scores of teenage girls were treated for hysteria in
mobile medical facilities.
 Predictably
enough, the antics produced a backlash. A national daily newspaper
devoted its lead editorial to the crisis, and several papers
demanded the group keep its future whereabouts a secret to avert a
tragedy.
By 1979 though, 'Little' Jimmy was no longer small or cute and
Donny and Marie's material had descended into the worst type of
countrified mawk - It was something they had always threatened
(notwithstanding Donny's ill-advised forays into Disco) - and then
Donny did the worst thing possible . . . he grew up.
The altogether rather sensible LP Donald Clark Osmond
got no further than the Top 160 in America and bombed completely
in the UK. But for a few years when The Osmonds were big in the
70's, they had no equal. They were B.I.G . . . Big.
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