Musician Wayne Osmond of the Osmonds has died at the age of 73

Wayne Osmond, singer, guitarist and founding member of the best-selling Osmonds, best known for 1970s teen hits such as One bad apple, Yo-yo and Down the lazy riverHe died. He was 73 years old.

Sibling 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 with more humility,” Merrill wrote, “a man with no cunning at all.” “Someone who was quick to forgive and had the ability to show unconditional love to everyone he met.”

Success with the group of brothers

Wayne Osmond was the fourth eldest of nine children raised in a Mormon family in Ogden, Utah, and the second eldest of a music artist.

The siblings’ career began in the 1950s when Wayne, Alan, Meryl and Jay sang as a barbershop quartet.

Their popularity grew in the 1960s after singer Andy Williams backed them, and they peaked as a quintet in the early 1970s, with younger brother Donnie Osmond a rising star.

One bad apple Other songs have often been compared to the music of the Osmonds’ contemporaries such as the Jackson 5, and Donnie has been positioned as the white counterpart to Jackson’s lead singer, Michael Jackson.

The Osmonds’ popularity faded by the mid-1970s, although both Donnie and Marie Osmond enjoyed successful careers as solo artists and as a brother-sister duo.

In the 1980s, Wayne regrouped with Alan, Meryl and Jay as a country act and had a number of hit songs, including I’m thinking about your love.

The singer suffered from health problems in the 1990s

But in the mid-1990s, Wayne was diagnosed with a brain tumor and lost much of his hearing due to surgery and treatment. A stroke in 2012 left him unable to play the guitar.

“I’ve had a wonderful life,” he told the Deseret News in 2018. “And you know, the ability to hear isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, it’s really not.”

“My favorite thing right now is taking care of my yard. I turn off my hearing aids, I’m as deaf as a doorknob, I adjust everything, and it’s really fun.”

Wayne Osmond married Kathleen White in 1974 and they had five children.