One Bad Apple by The Osmonds

One Bad Apple

1971

The Osmonds

Ok, gang, listen closely, and prepare for a shock... The 'Justin Bieber' syndrome as it relates to young female fans is most definitely not a new thing. Young girls have, in fact, squealed and sobbed and swooned at the very mention of the Young Male Singer Of The Moment pretty regularly over Rock and Roll's six or so decades of existence. Us Seventies Kids, in fact, had our own answer to 'The Biebs' back in the early Seventies, and his name was Donny Osmond.

When I say 'Our own answer to The Biebs', I'm talkin' young girls squealing and fainting and crying at just the merest glimpse of him on TV, parents and siblings being shushed to silence when the intro to any Donny Osmond song was heard on the radio in the Family Cruiser, young girls begging Mom and Dad for tickets to concerts because 'Like I'll just DIE if I can't Go!!!!!!, fans (All female and all of the Under 16 or so variety) wanting bits of his clothing and hair, and all of the other general Tween-Girl-Who's-Obsessed-With-A-Teen-Idol insanity.

Being a guy, I was, thankfully, immune to this particular brand of insanity, but not to my then and indeed very first girlfriend's (And still, four and a half decades later, very dear friend's) love for The Most Loved Osmond. Though she's never confirmed this, I've long suspected that she would not have instantly chosen me if she was told that either Donny or I were going to disappear forever, and that she got to decide which of the two of us got to stay around. Of course she would have ultimately smiled prettily, pointed a slender-then-thirteen-year-old finger at me said 'Keep this one...loose The One With The Giant Teeth...

Right? Right?? RIGHT??? Anyyyyywayyy...

Of course there were numerous notable differences between Donny and Justin (Besides the four decades and change that separates their careers). Donny wasn't, on his worst day, anywhere near as controversial as 'The Biebs' (In fact I don't recall any Donny-centric controversy right off the bat), but on the Biebs side of the coin, Justin Bieber has sung and recorded original songs, while (Get ready for shock Number Two, All Ye Donny Osmond Faithful), all of Donny's solo hits were covers of relatively ancient songs...every one of them. Not an original tune in the bunch.

Now the song that kicked in the afterburners on The Osmonds' career and was the first tune to really showcase Donny's prepubescent vocals was an original song, (as were several of the group's hits)...but while it was original and brand spankin' shiny new when they recorded it, it wasn't originally written with them in mind. Oh, it was written for them to record, but it was also written as if it was actually for...wait for it...wait for it! The Jackson Five! Who never even saw it. Confused yet? Read on and find understanding!

First, of course, we have to understand just how The Osmonds came to be in the first place, which brings us to what may be Shock # 3...Donny wasn't originally a member of The Osmonds...Oh he was a member of the family...just not the group. Of course Michael Jackson went through the same thing when the J-5 kicked their singing career off. 

 Both of these now-legendary singers were just toddlers when their dads put their brothers together and made music, and neither of them were included in the family singin' act until a couple of years after their brothers started singing. With that being said, when the J-5 kicked their career off M.J. was older than Donny was when The Osmonds began performing, so Michael had been singing...lead, at that...with The Jackson Five for a couple of years before Donny began singing with his brothers in The Osmonds. It goes without saying that the two groups had something else in common...Both groups careers really took off once they let their respective kid brothers' join the group.

Another important point that both groups had in common...The Dads of both families had a lot to do with both groups getting started, noticed, and becoming successful. The Osmond Brothers got their start in their home town of Ogden, Utah, about forty miles north of Salt Lake City, in 1958 when their dad, George Osmond, put four of the brothers (Alan, Wayne, Merrill, and Jay) together as a barbershop quartet. All of the Osmonds were devout members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and the barbershop quartet was originally set up as a fund raising activity to support the church's charitable activities. And, again, like The Jackson Five, a few years after they started performing locally someone took George aside and pointed out the fact that his kids were immensely talented and that he should really look into getting them a career that entailed more than singing in church fellowship halls and the like.

So George Osmond loaded up his kids and headed for California, with auditioning for and performing on The Lawrence Welk Show being the trip's primary objective. They auditioned for the legendary Mr Welk, and he...turned them down. Didn't need a bunch of kids singing on his show. Don't Call Us, We'll Call You. (Keep in mind here that a few years later Lawrence Welk also thought that One Toke Over The Line was a Gospel song.)

Now you have a bunch of kids, you've just been turned down by Lawrence Welk, and you're in California, home of the then all but brand new Disneyland. The kids decided that Disneyland had far more to offer them than did some ancient dude who was into champagne bubbles and music so old that even they had never heard it, so they set out for The Happiest Place On Earth, where, upon arriving, they promptly ended up singing with a barbershop quartet that was performing that day.

Were you or I to decide to get on stage and join in with one of the performers at Disneyland, or Disney World, or, heck, even the County Fair, we'd be promptly led away by security. If you're an Osmond, however, and you do that along with your brothers, you impress ol' Walt himself and get hired to perform not only there but on television specials as well.

And it was while they were performing on one of those classic Sunday night 'Wonderful World of Color' musical extravaganzas that another father...The fellow who a dude named Andy Williams called 'Dad'...spotted them and was suitably impressed, He told his own legendary son, who hosted a popular variety show in the Sixties, to book The Osmond Brothers for his show, which he promptly did. And they promptly became regulars on the show as well as favorites of both viewers and the show's cast and crew. The former because, well because these kids could flat-out freakin' sing! And the cast and crew because of their attitudes, politeness, and serious professionalism. If it tells you anything, they quickly and legitimately earned the nick-name 'One Take Osmonds'.

They performed on the show regularly from 1962 to 1969, and it was actually during their tenure on The Andy Williams Show that Donny was officially introduced to the world at the age of five when he charmed viewers by belting out 'You Are My Sunshine'. He also officially joined his brothers late in the show's run giving them five members, and while we're at it, it was during their tenure on The Andy Williams Show that both the youngest and prettiest Osmonds (Jimmy and Marie) were introduced.

The Osmonds were a busy clan during that seven year stretch of time...They also toured Europe, released a single in Sweden, began performing as regulars on The Jerry Lewis Show, continued to perform on The Andy Williams Show, became the darlings of the adults who watched variety shows (More than a few of whom planted the seeds of teen male suspicion of All Things Osmond in their sons by asking them 'Why can't you be a good boy like that sweet boy Donny') and, somewhere around 1967 or so deciding they wanted to be...well...pop stars. They wanted to form a Rock and Roll band.

George was not impressed at first. He did not like Rock and Roll. He did not trust Rock and Roll. And he...finally gave in. The Osmonds (They dropped the 'Brothers' when they became a band) learned to play instruments (Perfecting it as easily as they apparently did with all things music), figured out where each of them slotted in vocal range wise, got themselves a manager, got a contract with UNI records, and released a single called 'Flower Music' in 1967. It met with kinda moderate success. It was actually a great little song...catchy, pretty, and it should have been a perfect summer song. But again, it only met with moderate success, and moderate success does not a mega-hit or superstar make. Apparently the time was just not quite right.

So, being the consummate pros they already very much were, they buckled down, practiced even more, became even better...and then came a guy named Mike Curb, who was a record producer of some...er...small renown, and who was the president of an...er...obscure little recording concern known as MGM records. He heard the Osmonds perform. And said WOW. I don't even think they actually had to audition...he signed them. Mike was immensely impressed with them, their abilities both vocally and instrumentally, and their professionalism, and he flat out knew he had stars on his hands. He was right...and a little tune that was written with The Jackson Five in mind was about to prove it.

The Osmonds were performing in Las Vegas, so Mike Curb got hold of Rick Hall...the owner of Fame Studios, in Muscle Shoals, Alabama...and had him fly out to Vegas to listen to 'A group that I'm kind of interested in'. He didn't tell the guy who'd produced hits for the likes of Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Rod Stewart and Cher that he was sending him to listen to a group whose main claim to fame was singing on The Andy Williams Show, because if he had, Rick would have very likely stayed in Alabama..

But Hall did fly out to Vegas, took a listen and was suitably impressed by what he heard. He and Mike Curb conferred telephonically, and Mike asked him if he thought he could make 'em into a Jackson Five -like hit machine. Hall said he could do just that...and he meant it pretty much literally, because when he got back to Muscle Shoals he told Fame Studios staff songwriter George Jackson (No relation to The Jacksons) to knock out a song for the Jackson Five...only it wasn't going to be for the Jackson Five, It's gonna be for this new white-bread group called 'The Osmonds'

“Let me get this straight...” Jackson very possibly said to his boss. “...You want me to write a soul song for a bunch of white kids and make them sound like 'The Jackson Five.' ”

'Exactly!'

And George probably nodded, said something like 'O-KAAAAY then', and started writing lyrics and notes and such, while Mike Curb got hold of The Osmonds and sent them to Muscle Shoals. George Jackson knocked out a tune that did such a good job twinning J-5 music that some people think 'One Bad Apple' is a Jackson Five hit to this day! The song's subject...a boy telling a girl not to let one bad experience with another guy ruin their own relationship...is even exactly what you'd expect the J-5 to sing about. But again, it wasn't The Jackson Five...it was The Osmonds. And it was a biggie.

Now, lot's of people...those who aren't busy mistaking 'One Bad Apple' for a Jackson-five hit anyway...think of this as a Donny Osmond song but it actually, well, wasn't, and that's very obvious when you listen to it. This was a The Osmond's single. When George Jackson knocked this bubblegum classic out, he wrote it with Merrill singing lead, and Donny singing co-lead, with Donny singing solo on the chorus...this same set up was, in fact, used in many of the The Osmonds' hits as a group. As their careers progressed, especially when performing on tour as The Osmonds, this actually created it's own brand of confusion because Merrill and Donny looked so much alike, and in much later years, Merrill actually grew his beard out so fans could more easily distinguish between the two of them.

Like all Bubbegum Pop, 'One Bad Apple' was light, simplistic and repetitive, and was aimed square at that group today known as 'Tweens'. The success of this tactic was made very clear before the song was even recorded, much less released, when the group arrived in Muscle Shoals in late 1970. Though The Internet was still a quarter century in the future, and The Osmonds weren't all that well known yet, the news that a bunch of what were probably termed 'Really cute guys!!!!' by the local Tween Girl population were going to be in town arrived before the aforementioned 'Really cute guys!!!!' did, and extra security had to be added at the studio to keep marauding bands of little girls from invading the property (No...I'm not kidding!). These same gals would follow the boys around like the proverbial puppies...likely giving them big eyed stares while sighing regularly...when they went off-site for a break or a bite to eat, or, Oh I dunno, to go back to their hotel to get some sleep. My bet is that, being teenage boys, none of the Osmonds were at all offended by all of this attention.

When the single was released the day after New Years of 1971, these same young girls begged their parents for the four bucks or so that was the going price of a single back then, and started sending One Bad Apple up the charts. It debuted at #78 on on The Billboard Hot 100 on January 2^nd, cracked the Top 10, at #9, on January 30^th, then jumped seven spots in a single week to land in the runner-up spot on February 6^th. The very next week they snagged the Hot 100's Top Spot, and hung on to it for five weeks...a feat that many far more successful groups with #1 hits can't claim for one of their own chart-toppers...dropping down to #4 on March 20^th, and dropping off of the Hot 100 altogether four weeks later, on April 10^th, for a fifteen week chart run, nine of 'em in the Top 10, and again, five of 'em at #1. Not bad for any group, and definitely kick-ass for a group's first single.

Merril was singing 'OHHhhHH give it one more chance before you give up on LoooOOoove...' all over Top 40 Radio as we made our way back to school after Christmas Break of 1970. It was light, feel good, Tween-centric bubblegum pop in it's purest form, and it made all of us guys really leery of this Donny Osmond kid. But the girls loved him (And his bros) and made them stars, and you could hear one or two young ladies doing very respectable acapella renditions of that classic chorus between classes at any given Junior high school on any given day during the song's chart run.

I was in 8^th grade at Southampton Jr High (Home Of The Eagles back than, now long gone) when all of this was goin' on, and we heard it on Tidewater Virginia's AM Top 40 powerhouse, WGH, regularly. Heck, hourly (Or more) on the weekends, and during the early evenings (Trivia bit...WGH reduced power at night, making them all but impossible to pick up in Southampton County after about 9PM)

The song's still around...it'll pop up pretty regularly on Oldies Stations, and women of a certain age will wax nostalgic and get misty eyed, and maybe even sigh like a crush-stricken 13 year old if they happen to be listening when that quick, snappy guitar and hummed vocal intro pops out at them...and I can bet that that hey sing along with it!

So Enjoy! One Bad Apple by The Osmonds!

As a bonus, The Osmonds' very first single, 'Flower Music', released on the UNI records label. They almost sound a little like the Beatles in the first few seconds of the song, and the way the song's arranged, to my not overly trained ear at any rate, even sounds a little like a 'Beatles' song. It's definitely not a bad little tune, and it should have been a great little Summer song...but it wasn't to be

Sweet and Innocent by Donny Osmond

Sweet And Innocent

1971

Donny Osmond

Just as Motown had with the J-5 and Michael Jackson only a year or so earlier, MGM realized they had a powerhouse on their hands, and they weren't thinking entirely of the group. They were listening to the high-pitched young chants of 'Don-nee!! Don-nee!!Don-nee!! and hearing all of the little girls saying, in dreamy, shuddery voices, that they were going to marry Donny Osmond. (The proper way for a young girl to do this was to cast her eyes skyward with a dreamy sparkly-eyed expression on her face, breath in deeply, say breathlessly 'I'm gonna marry Donny Osmond!!!!' then, while still staring dreamily at some point in space, sigh at length. The ending-sigh was mandatory. Yep, almost just like on TV. And Yes, I saw one or two of my better-looking friends do just this, or a reasonable facsimile there-of, during that time frame.).

And the kid could sing. And Motown had made a mint already off of both The Jackson Five, and Michael Jackson. SO...MGM naturally wondered if they could match that performance by making Donny Osmond a solo artist as well as a member of the Osmonds. Of course, with forty-five years of hindsight available to us, we know the answer to that one, but it really was a bit of a risk. They had to find the perfect song...one that'd have each and every one of his young, impressionable fans swooning and imagining him singing it to her and her alone.

SO a search for The Perfect Single for Donny Osmond was mounted...the suits at MGM and Fame Studios wanted to strike while the iron was hot, specifically while 'One Bad Apple' was still echoing in all the tween-girl heads in the US, and somewhere along the way...probably early on at that...the decision was made that they just didn't have time to concoct an original song, so the search criteria were narrowed...find the perfect already-existing song for Donnie Osmond to cover...

...And the musical cross-hairs fell upon a 1958 barely-hit written by Rick Hall and Billy Sherrill, then recorded and released by Roy Orbison called 'Sweet and Innocent' . Roy had taken this syrupy ballad of young teen love to the top 100...but I couldn't find just how far up the charts he took it. This tells me, however, it wasn't far.

SO, the song was given to the staff song-scribes at FAME studios, and they were told to 'Make it a hit for Donny' or words to that effect. And they did just that. Now Donny's version of 'Sweet and Innocent' is considered a cover but I'm gonna give credit where credit's due on this one...it's a cover in name only. The title's the same, and certain phrases in the chorus...the titular 'Sweet and Innocent', as well as a couple of other word-pairs...are reused, but the entire song...for that matter, the entire concept of the song...was rewritten, revamped, and entirely remodeled.

While the original was a s-l-o-w, syrupy, almost cloyingly sweet ballad, Donny Osmond's cover was taken way up-tempo and given some actual snap. While there was still some sweetness involved, it was a bit more sweet and sour and, with it's energetic beat, it was way more suited to Pop music as it existed in mid 1971. You can be a little tempted to head-bop a bit to Donny's cover of Sweet and Innocent, where you wouldn't even think of doing so to Roy Orbison's original.

Then there was the complete revamp of the tune's lyrics and concept. Basically Fame Studio's songwriters pretty much gutted the song and sent most of the old lyrics to the dump, leaving, as noted, only a few phrases. Then they wrote new lyrics that turned the song's concept just about 180 degrees. While in the original a boy spoke of how his young girlfriend's sweet, innocent nature was perfect for him, Donny's version turned that on it's head, telling the young lady that she was far too young for him, and that he needed to keep her at arms length because he was so attracted to her despite her youth. (Keep in mind here that Donny's almost a year younger than I am, which would've made him 13 when he released 'Sweet and Innocent'. Lots of ten, eleven, and twelve year old girls just knew he was singing to them, personally. And that was truly a driving force in the tune's success.)

MGM and Fame didn't waste any time rewriting, recording, and releasing it either...One Bad Apple was still comfortably in the Top Ten when Sweet and Innocent hit the Billboard Hot 100, at #88, on March 27^th, '71. It also became obvious that neither Donny or The Osmonds were going to manage the same multi-chart-topper success as their friendly rivals from Motown, The Jackson Five, had a year or so earlier. Though The Osmonds kicked off their career with a chart-topper, Donny's first single was a slow-burner. It most definitely didn't shoot up the charts, and for a bit it looked as if it might emulate Roy Orbison's original version of the tune, because it hadn't cracked the top 40 yet on it's fifth week in. Sweet and Innocent finally cracked the Top 30...and almost cracked the Top 20...when it landed at #22 on week 5. It made it to the top 10, at #8, a week later on May 29^th, peaked at # 7 a week after that on June 5^th, and hung on to that spot for two weeks before heading down, dropping off the chart, at #24, on July 10^th. It may not have climbed as fast or as high as One Bad Apple (Or any of the J-5's songs) but it's 16 week chart run did beat out One Bad Apple by one week.

And don't let chart position fool you about the song's popularity among it's target demo...remember songs such as Sweet and Innocent were actually aimed at a fairly narrow, but well populated demographic, and the young girls loved it, begging parents to front them the money to buy it as as they crushed hard on it's young singer. And sometimes those parents said 'No'. So there were lots of young girls listening to it on the local Top 40 station who didn't buy the single. You heard it on the AM Top 40 powerhouses (WGH. 'Famous 1310' in my still...but not for long...home county of Southampton County, Virginia) all spring as it gathered steam and eased up the charts slowly but deliberately, like a big rig climbing a mountain grade.

The tempo and melody of the song was perfect for the target it was aimed at, and that simple little synthesized whistle/drum/guitar intro was a very familiar sound as the Summer of '71 kicked off. Like all Bubblegum it was simplistic and sweet, but this one was sweet with just a touch of sass, and those simple and repetitive lyrics made it easy to memorize and sing, so like One Bad Apple, you could hear it being sung to at lockers and during class change pretty regularly (I had a pair of very good friends, one of whom is still a very dear friend, who could knock out a mean version of it, complete with a cute little sashay to '...I love the little wiggle...in your walk...)

It's still loved by Donny Osmond fans everywhere, as much for the memories it generates...both of a much simpler time and a much simpler era...as for the song itself and if you listen at just the right time you just might hear it on an Oldies station occasionally.

So Enjoy! Sweet and Innocent by Donny Osmond...Note the hiss you can hear in the background here and there (And the record player at the beginning of the video). Me thinks this was recorded straight off of an old 45, or maybe an album track. The great majority of the record players owned by the kids who were Donny's biggest fans were not high end studio quality rigs...most were inexpensive rigs that gave you that little back-ground hiss, making this seem all the more authentic

As a Bonus...The Original version of the tune, from 1958, by Roy Orbison. While Donny's version is considered a cover, other then the title it had absolutely nothing in common with the original, and this proves it. Roy Orbison's original was a slow, syrupy ballad, while Donny's version had some snap to it, and about the only lyrics the two songs had in common were the words 'Sweet and Innocent'  As noted above, Fame Studio's songwriters completely overhauled the tune.

Go Away Little Girl by Donny Osmond

Go Away Little Girl

1971

Donny Osmond

Donny didn't do bad at all with 'Sweet And Innocent'...cracking the Top 10 with your first single is not at all shabby by any means...but with his friend and rival Michael Jackson and The Jackson Five accumulating #1 hits the way the proverbial dark suit accumulates lint, I have a feeling that Mike Curb and the rest of MGMs's brass weren't completely satisfied with a hit that only made it to #7...so the search was on for another hit for Donny, one that would climb further up in the rarefied chart-mosphere of the Top Ten, and maybe even snag that coveted top spot. And again, when they developed another tune for him, they kinda took the easy, and most importantly, quick way out and decided to cover an old favorite...no, really, this time it really was an old favorite, one that had already sat in that much-desired #1 spot. And when they chose the song for Donny to cover he, from the sounds of things, actually all but made the decision for them.

Back in 1962 Gerry Goffin and Carole King (Yep...that Carole King) knocked out a little tune called 'Go Away Little Girl' about a boy telling a girl who liked him...and who he was attracted to...that she needed to stay away from him because he was already spoken for. It was a pretty little pop-tune, simple and smooth and soothing, and almost...but not quite...slow enough to be a ballad. Bobby Vee was the first artist to record it, including it on his 1962 album 'The Night Has A Thousand Eyes'...but I don't believe he ever released it as a single. Then, in January '63 Steve Lawrence covered it, did release it as a single, and promptly took it to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, making it his most successful Pop hit by far.

It'd crack the Top 20 again almost four years later when The Happenings took it to #12 two days before Halloween, 1966. And then, four and and a half years after that, in mid 1971, MGM's suits had a meeting of the minds with Donny, who, it so happened, was a big fan of the song. He'd been pushing MGM to let him cover it for a bit, and they had, as corporate suits tend to do, held meetings, pondered, pontificated, debated the potential profitability (Or possible lack-there-of) of covering the song, and finally, at this final meeting, gave the go ahead and made the appropriate arrangements.

Happily, both the songwriters and producers at FAME studios and Donny were of a like mind about changing the lyrics and melody on this one...they pretty much left it as it was. The intro was tweaked and modernized a scosh, and a couple of words were changed, but they stayed 99.9% faithful to the lyrics and 100% faithful to the melody, keeping the exact same tempo and beat that had already taken the song to #1 one time, and into the Top 20 twice. Sometime during mid-summer of '71 Donny, with the rest of the Osmonds pulling Back-up Singer duty on the chorus, stepped to the mike, and at the producer's cue, crooned 'Go Awaaaaay Little Girl...' for the first time, wondering if they could strike gold with it yet again.

The same legions of little girls who'd made Donny a star several times over in the last year and change squealed In glee as he crooned that opening line, swooned, and grabbed their parents, descended on record stores, and started sending 'Go Away Little Girl' up the charts. It apparently took a week or two or three for the tidal wave of young fans to hit the stores full force, though...when Go Away Little Girl debuted on The Billboard Hot 100 on August 7^th, 1971, it barely made it onto the chart, clocking in at #89 on it's first week...but it jumped 45 spots on it's second week to land at #44 and almost cracked the Top 20 on it's third week in, landing at #24 on August 17^th. Then the afterburners really kicked in. It cracked the Top 10, at #10, on August 28^th, the Top 5 at # 5 a week later, just as school cranked up for the year on September 4^th, and grabbed that coveted #1 spot on September 11^th 1971, becoming the very first song to ever be taken to #1 by two different artists while it was at it...that in itself being a pretty exclusive club, with only nine songs ever pulling it off.

The song hung on to #1 for three weeks before dropping to the runner-up spot for another pair of weeks, staying in the Top 10...at #5 and #7 respectively...for two more weeks and finally falling off of the chart altogether on November 11^th, 1971 for a total of 15 weeks on the chart, eight of 'em in the Top Ten. Just to show how diverse music tastes were back in The Awesome Music Decade, Go Away Little Girl knocked Paul and Linda McCartney's 'Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey' out of the #1 spot, while Rod Stewart's 'Maggie May took over the #1 spot when 'Go Away Little Girl dropped down to #2.

It goes with out saying that Donny Osmond was crooning this tune all over Top 40 radio as the 1971-72 school year...my freshman year in high school...kicked off. I'd moved to Chesterfield County just about two months earlier, so when I heard it it was on Richmond's AM Top 40 powerhouse, WLEE.

The titular little girls loved it and kept it alive until almost Thanksgiving. (Steve Lawrence's version, BTW, still beat Donny's version by two weeks, chart-run wise...17 weeks to 15 weeks...though Donny's version stayed at #1 a week longer that Steve L's. And another little bit of useless but interesting trivia...Steve Lawrence's version of the song debuted on the Hot 100 during the same week in November that would see Donnie's version drop off of the chart 9 years later.)

'Go Away Little Girl' also, arguably, has had the best staying power of any Donny Osmond song, and not just on the Oldies Stations, though it's among the most played of Osmond Oldies. It's been covered extensively by other artists (And, as noted, Donnie's version was itself a cover), from Mickey Dolenz, of 'The Monkees' fame,to Lawrence Welk, who, BTW,  actually rejected The Osmonds when they auditioned for his show almost a decade earlier.

While serious musicians give the tune a wide berth, it still talks to young girls to this day, both the little girl who's still inside every adult woman (Many of whom were among the Donny Osmond Faithful back in the day) and, occasionally, modern tweens and teens. The reason that contemporary kids like it, though, could possibly be for a different reason. The song's melody and simple lyrics make it easy to memorize and sing, and it's one of those songs that pretty much anyone who can carry a tune a couple of feet can sound acceptably good singing, making it a favorite at middle and high school talent contests forty-four years after the first single was placed on a record store shelf.

As little respect as 'Bubble-gum' pop garnered, and as much contempt as serious musicphiles had for the genre, 'Go Away Little Girl', like all of Donny's music, is loved by his original fans...those tween girls of the early Seventies who're closing in on retirement age now...because of the memories that sweet, soft flute intro calls up, and because when they hear it, for just under two and a half minutes, they're back in junior high school.

So enjoy...Donnie Osmond's biggest and best loved hit...Go Away Little Girl.


And for the first bonus...Bobby Vee's original version, which was never released as a single..

 And the second bonus...Steve Lawrence's uber-hit version from 1963, which was also the first version of the song to go straight up to The Billboard Hot 100's top spot

Yo-Yo By The Osmonds

Yo-Yo

1971

The Osmonds

I have a sneakin' suspicion that, as summer 1971 started winding down, The Osmonds were getting a bit tired of being a Caucasian Jackson-5 knock-off. True, One Bad Apple had gone straight up the chart to #1, but there is a price to pay for being a J-5 knock-off, that price being the fact that lots of people think that your to-date-biggest-hit is a Jackson Five song. The Osmonds wanted to develop their own sound...something apart from Bubblegum, something that was more in the direction of what they actually had in mind in the first place...as you may recall they wanted to form a Rock and Roll band.

Of course the actual term 'Rock and Roll' had become sort of out-dated by mid 1971, and was now usually just shortened to 'Rock', but that's where The Brothers Osmond wanted to head, so they did what every successful band since the beginning of modern music history has done when they wanted to adjust their genre...they met with their management and their label.

Both apparently thought it was an excellent idea...Donny was holding down the Bubblegum side of things very competently (While also singing as part of The Osmonds...more on that in a minute) but they also probably didn't want to invest too much time, effort and, most importantly, money in the project until they found out if it would work.

They'd find a song for The Osmonds to cover. Now, when they did the same thing for Donny during just about the exact same time frame, the song they selected had already made it to #1 once and the Top 20 twice, giving it a pretty good spring-board that helped send it to #1 for a second time.

They pretty much went in the exact opposite direction with a new-old Rock tune for The Osmonds. I couldn't find out exactly who picked the donor-tune for their cover, but when they made their decision they must have cleaned out a closet and looked in the back corner of it's highest shelf. What they found...and grabbed...was a 1967 Billy Joe Royal single about a guy talking about the girl who was stringing him along called 'Yo-Yo'.  Note I didn't say Billy Joe Royal hit because, well...it wasn't.

Billy Joe Royal's original release of the song never even made it to the high end of the Hot 100...the best it did was #117, which is actually kind of surprising given it's pedigree. It was penned by a fellow with the eminently awesome name of Joe South who'd written such well loved Country-Soul tunes as 'Down In The Boondocks' and 'Games People Play', and it had a serious, percussion-heavy Motown vibe goin' on, with a rhythm and beat that grabbed you and wouldn't let go. It should have done far far better than it did. But music taste is fickle...always has been and always will be...and BJR's original version of the song just sort of languished.

Then MGM grabbed it and gave it to Fame Studios, whose staff song-scribes dusted it off, completely revamped the intro sending it up-tempo, banished the drums to more of a backing role and gave it a solid guitar-heavy thrum. They went up-tempo with the rest of the song as well, at the same time notching the vocals upward a bit to accommodate Donny's...who sang co-lead with older bro Merrill...as of yet unchanged voice. Really...listen to it closely. Merrill's all but busting a gut and spitting his tonsils out trying to reach those notes. Donny, of course, had no trouble with it at all and had a different timbre and sound to his voice in this one...as one source I read put it, he 'Hit those Blues notes dead-on and really sang it like he meant it!'. The melding and mingling of the two brothers' voices gave the song it's unique sound and sent it to a place that The Osmonds hadn't been before.

It wasn't exactly a Rock song...but it wasn't Bubblegum either, and it was more than well received...it'd become their second Top Ten hit as well as their second biggest hit.

Donny must've gone straight from recording 'Go Away Little Girl' to recording 'Yo-Yo' with his brothers, because 'Yo-Yo' debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 at #85 on the exact same week that Go Away Little Girl peaked at #1...September 11, 1971. It cracked the Top 10 at #9 on it's fourth week in, and peaked at #3 two weeks later on Oct 17^th, hanging on at #3 for three weeks before dropping down to #5, and stayed in the Hot 100 for four more weeks before it dropped off the chart at #26 on December 4^th, giving it a  respectable 13 week chart run.

Pretty much everyone who was a teen or tween as school started up for the 1971-72 school year remembers that raspy 'OooOOoo JUST LIKE A YO-YOOOO' blasting from the radio on at least a half-hourly basis as the song chart-climbed and the great majority of us liked it...enough of us to take it to #3 and keep it there for a trio of weeks. Yo-Yo had a more than subtle kick to it, and signaled a new if short era of  'The Osmonds' music.

As noted above, if you hear any Osmonds song other than One Bad Apple on an Oldies station today it'll probably be this one. And a lot of us will sing along with Merrill as he strains his voice trying to hit the same key as his younger brother, whether we want to admit it or not!

So Enjoy! Yo-Yo, by The Osmonds.


And as a bonus, The original version of the tune by Billy Joe Royal, from 1967.

Hey Girl by Donnie Osmond

Hey Girl

1971

Donny Osmond

As 1971 started winding down the suits at MGM probably figured, with good reason, that they should leave a winning combination alone...Donnie had taken his cover of a Carole King and Gerry Goffin penned song to #1 only a few months back, so they figured that he could at the very least take another one into the Top 10. And if that was indeed how their thought process was working, they would have been right.

They reached back almost a decade for this one, to a classic Soul tune that Freddie Scott took to #10 on The Hot 100 back in 1963. Freddie's song about a man begging his woman not to leave him was soul in it's purest form, with his smooth voice cranking up a quarter octave or so into a pleading rasp on the chorus. It was Soul and it was smooth...and MGM took it, gave it to Donnie, and made into a bubblegum (Or, as it was sometimes called 'Blue-Eyed Soul) tune very competently.

They stayed true to the lyrics and tempo but, of course, kicked the key upward to accommodate Donny's 13 year old, still unchanged voice. The outro was completely revised, with the rest of the Osmonds pulling back-up singer duty, the instrumentals were changed up, and it was sent out into the world for hopeful approval by Donny's prepubescent and barely pubescent fans.

I hadn't heard this one in decades when I pulled it up on YouTube while I was researching this post...

you never hear this one any more...and I'd forgotten how good it was. It was a little more Soul and a little less Bubblegum than Donny's earlier hits. Only subtly so, and you really have to listen for it, but the difference was there. Like his brothers, Donny's music was evolving and maturing just a bit, at least for this one tune....more on that in a couple of posts.

I have a feeling that it was still the young ladies who took him into the Top 10 though. And I'm going to give Donny props for something else here too...at 13, the kid had a work ethic that was astounding! Hey Girl was released only a couple of weeks after 'Go Away Little Girl' dropped off of the charts, which mean he recorded that hit, Yo-Yo with his brothers, then 'Hey Girl pretty much back-to-back-to-back.

Hey Girl debuted on the Hot 100 at #70 on Nov 27^th, 1971, and gave Donny and MGM a Christmas present 4 weeks later when it cracked the Top 10, at#10, on Christmas Day, matching the Freddy Scott version's peak chart position. It hung on to #10 for three weeks before jumping up a single notch to peak at #9 and stay there for one week, besting Freddie by a single notch. It dropped off the chart altogether two weeks later for a ten week chart run.

I gotta admit, I only vaguely remember this one being on the radio, probably because as 1971 drew to a close there was such a glut of really awesome music out there. Also, I wasn't exactly in the fan demo for Donny's music. And, as his hits go chart performance-wise, this one was a relative sleeper.

Then it dropped off the face of the earth altogether, overshadowed by both the rest of the music of the early Seventies, and by the rest of Donnie's own hits.

But I have a feeling his real fans remember it!

So Enjoy! Hey Girl, By Donnie Osmond.


And as a bonus...Freddy Scott's original, and Oh-So-Smooth soul version of the song from 1963.

Down By The Lazy Rver by The Osmonds

Down By The Lazy River

1972

The Osmonds

The Brothers Osmond were hard at work as Christmas 1971 approached, and much of their labor had nothing to do with Christmas shopping. They were still looking for a good, edgy sound of their own. And when I say 'Their Own', I mean written, produced and performed by them. And when I say produced and performed by them I mean with the same astounding work ethic and professionalism that they had become known for.

Allen and Merrill Osmond knocked out this tune about a guy trying to persuade a gal to accompany him to the titular Lazy River with the approval of and, indeed, encouragement of, MGM and proved themselves just as capable of writing a song as they were at singing it. They left the bubblegum far behind while they were at it. 'Down By The Lazy River' was a Rock song and it had a ferocious rhythm and beat and some serious drums and guitar accompanying Merrill's raspy vocals to prove it.

It debuted at a respectable #68 on The Billboard Hot 100 on Jan 22, 1972, and wasted no time making the climb to the Top 10, landing at #7 on February 12^th, and peaking at #4, where it'd stay for two weeks, just under a month later on March 4^th . It stayed in the top 10, at#10 for one more week, then dropped down a single spot to #11 for another week, and dropped off the chart on April 22^nd for a 14 week chart run...not at all bad for their first songwriting effort! OH...it's also listed as #36 on the Billboard Year End Hot 100 for 1972, a year that yielded some seriously awesome music I might add!

The sound was different enough from The Osmonds' previous efforts for fans, when they first heard it, to have sort of a 'Wow!' moment, and a lot of serious Rockers, when they heard Merrill dive right in without any intro and wail 'What cha Doin' Tonite!?!?, and the rest of the Osmonds join in for 2:45 worth of solid Rock, couldn't believe it. It was all over Top 40 radio, and if I recall correctly DJs would sometimes introduce it with the preamble 'By, believe it or not, The Osmonds!' The tune was pretty much a fixture on the radio as Winter '72 became Spring, and you could still hear it as Spring became Summer, even though it had fallen off the Hot 100 in April.

While 'Down By The Lazy River' was almost overplayed in early 1972...probably from sheer disbelief that The Osmonds had spawned a legitimate Rock tune...it's become another song that's fallen off of the Oldies Stations playlists...you'll hear it once in a great while if you listen long enough, but it's a rare treat when that happens.

So Enjoy! The Osmonds' first little bit of proof that they could be Rockers! Down By The Lazy River.

Puppy Love by Donny Osmond

Puppy Love

1972

Donny Osmond

SO! After notching up the maturity level just a tiny bit for 'Hey Girl', Donny Osmond then preceded to record the tune that, more than any other song he recorded by far, forever cemented his status as the absolute, uncontested master of early Seventies Bubblegum Pop.

A song that every woman who was a tween/teen girl in 1972 still knows by heart, and that every man who was a tween/teen boy still has stuck in his head whether he wants it there or not. It was played that much over about a three month period in early 1972

'What song?' you may ask. Hint. 'And they call it Puppy LOOOooOOOoooOOOve...'

MGM Whip Mike Curb reached back a scosh more than a decade to find this one, and this time he picked a tune that two big names were already associated with...one being the songwriter and singer of the tune, and the other being the lovely young lady he wrote it for...both of them seventeen at the time the original 'Puppy Love' was released.

Puppy Love was written 1n 1960 by a young man by the name of Paul Anka who'd enjoy some...er...small measure of musical success over the next couple of decades, and it was written for the one, only, and incomparable Annette Funicello, who Anka was dating while on tour (A romance that Anka's management insisted that they keep low key...Anka was, after all, a Teen Idol at the time.). He wrote it out of frustration, as a reply to those who said (After the romance inevitably became public anyway) that, at 17 years old, their love was just a (Lets all say it together!) 'Puppy Love'.

Paul Anka tweaked some hearts and emotions in a good way with this one...in April 1960 he took it to the Runner-Up spot on The Billboard Hot 100.

Flash forward 12 years...not only did Mike Curb pick this one for Donnie to cover, he produced it, and he told Donnie to pull out all of the emotional stops when he recorded it, which he most definitely did, especially on the line 'Someone help me! Help me PleeeEEeeease!'. Millions of young girls swooned and sighed at the first note of that string-heavy intro, and all of them just knew...I'm talking absolutely knew...that Donny was singing directly to them and them alone. And this absolute and unshakable belief is what helped Donny's version of 'Puppy Love' come within one spot of matching the original's chart performance.

It debuted on The Hot 100 at #26 on Feb 26, 1972 and cracked the Top 10, at #9 three weeks later, on March 18^th. It peaked at #3 on April 6^th, staying there for a single week before heading down and dropping off the chart on the thirteenth of May for a 12 week chart run. (Paul Anka's version bettered Donny's version by a single week at Peak, and by two weeks in it's stay on the Hot 100, as well as moving a single place further up on the Hot 100. 

Another interesting little bit of trivia. Both versions of the song were on The Hot 100 during the exact same weeks of the years they charted, with Paul Anka's original version, of course, spending an extra two weeks on the chart. Both versions even peaked during the exact same week in April...just 12 years apart..)

Donny's version stayed absolutely true to the melody and lyrics, with MGM's song-scribes only tweaking the former a bit, and changing a single word (From Anka's 'Seventeen' to Donny's 'In our teens') in the latter and Donny, as noted above, really ramped up the emotion on it. Lets be honest here...Bubblegum though he may have been, Donny had (And still has) an awesome voice, and he really knew how to put feeling into a song, even at the young age of 14, and bubblegum though it may be, Puppy Love's well remembered and much loved by Donny's original fans,and is kept alive by younger artists covering it every dozen or so years.

And, trust me on this, you absolutely could not get away from it during the Winter and Spring of '72. WLEE was still the Top 40 radio destination of choice in Richmond back then, and if you were tuned to 1480 you were forever hearing Donny croon that near-iconic first line and beg for someone to 'Help me! Help me PleeeeEEeeease!!' along with all of the other major hits of the day.

As much as we heard it back then...and as well remembered as it is...you almost never hear it on Oldies stations any more...but that didn't keep the true Donnyphiles among us Seventies Kids from remembering it fondly, and I can bet ya that on those rare occasions they do hear it on the radio they can pretty much join in on that first note and sing right along!

So enjoy! Donny Osmonds Ultimate Bubblegum tune...Puppy Love! The graphics for this one redefine adorable, BTW...if you don't get a smile on your face and say 'AWWWWW' while watching this vid, you have a heart of the hardest stone!


A pair of bonus vids for this one! First up, the original, written for the lovely Annette Funicello by Paul Anka way back in 1960, when the two of them were one of the original Teen power-couples. 


Second bonus...S Club Juniors cover of the tune from 2002. They stayed absolutely true to both melody and lyrics when they covered it, then made it into a Christmas song, and did a pretty good job with it at that. They also cracked the Top 10 on the British Singles Chart, clocking in at #6. One the best parts of the vid is the looks that the other members of the group are giving Calvin as he sings the tune...you can tell these kids had a blast with this one! The message at the end rocks, too, BTW

There's a strange story connected to Donny's version of Puppy Love, BTW. Back in the early Seventies, Southern California's AM Top-40 mega-giant was KLH, in L.A., and KLH's premiere DJ was a guy named Robert W. Morgan.

Supposedly, one day in March, 1972, Morgan locked the door to the broadcast studio and played 'Puppy Love' for a solid 90 minutes. Equally supposedly, LAPD actually responded to the KLH studios on a welfare check to see if Morgan was OK, and to make sure that the wasn't being forced to do this by unknown ne'er-do-wells ( No kidding here...one of the things that the responding officers actually thought may have happened was a takeover by radical Donny Osmond fans...and an image of a group of cute li'l camo-clad teeny-boppers armed with curling irons, looks of absolute determination on their faces, threatening to break the classic Beatles albums that they're holding in their hands as they demand that he 'Play it again or the records get it' suddenly springs to mind...)

The officers found nothing amiss...except the locked studio...and found Morgan smiling and cheerful. He'd later say that he'd gotten so tired of 'Teeny-boppers' requesting the tune that he decided to play it until everyone got tired of it.

The cops left shaking their heads in confusion. Apparently excessive playing of Puppy Love is not a crime in Cali!