The Osmond’s/Donny and Marie
The Osmond’s are an American family music group with a long and varied career, formed in Salt Lake City, Utah, and are devout members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Their religious values have influenced in their career. The Osmond Brothers began their career as a barbershop quartet formed by the brothers of Alan, Wayne, Merrill, and Jay for local audiences. They also participated in a TV movie called “Inside the Osmonds”. The TV movie explained how they originally began performing as a way to earn money to assist their older brothers Virl and Tom Osmond in buying hearing aids and serving missions for the church.
The group would branch out from being just a Barbershop quartet, as they wanted to perform popular music, including rock and roll. The group would eventually include their younger siblings Donny, Marie and Jimmy. The group would work with record producer Mike Curb for MGM. Some of the hit singles included One Bad Apple, Yo-Yo, Donny’s lead solos called Puppy Love and Go Away Little Girl and Marie Osmond’s hit single Paper Roses.
In 1976, Donny and Marie started their own TV variety show on ABC. The show aired on Friday nights and included an intro of ice skating, comedy skits and songs performed by the duo.
One of the most well-known songs to come from the show was the song, “I’m a Little Bit Country, I’m a Little Bit of Rock n Roll”.