Mormon Donny Took Road Less Travelled

Never a big fan of Donny Osmond one has to admire his surviving child stardom after being called a “has been” & facing financial ruin, yet, remaining faithful to his ideals to this day: “I wasn’t going to do it with scandals.”

The resilient singer was only 5 years old when he made his TV debut on the Andy Williams show and I still recall thinking “this cutsy kid with a distinctive high-pitched voice isn’t going to last.” Donny was just 13 when he recorded solo music, Fox News recently noted, and now he’s back in Las Vegas perhaps more popular than ever. Not to quote the Christian “Road Less Travelled” to describe the Mormon, but “making it on his own terms wasn’t always easy” and filled with many a pot hole as he repeatedly “re-invented” himself. Recall the “Donny & Marie Show … caput after 1979. The Osmond family would struggle together after losing much of their early fortune to bad investments. Then, came a lead role on stage & screen in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamboat; more gold records (33 in total) and 100 million albums eventually sold, culminating in a looong running act with Marie (again) at the Flamingo in Las Vegas.

“I decided long ago that I wasn’t going to do it with scandals, trickery or promotional campaigns,” the 64-year-old recalled. “I was going to do it with my music, which is a really difficult way to do it. But it happened. It took me 10 years. But I wanted the music to speak for itself…”

Davd Soul