My first love, and the first album I bought myself (was The Osmonds, "The Plan" -- $4.88 at K-Mart).
Donny Osmond Bowwows Them at the Birchmere
Post
Thursday, May 12, 2005; C02
Puppy love has legs. Donny Osmond resuscitated the inner schoolgirl in a house full of grown-ups at the Birchmere on Tuesday.
Osmond grew up in public as part of the Osmonds, a family act that eventually became white America's answer to the Jackson 5. (Both clans had Saturday morning cartoons and licensed lunchboxes.) Shortly after Donny, the youngest band member, was pegged as the chosen Osmond -- his first solo LP came out in 1971, a year in which he and his brothers earned six gold records -- Michael Jackson broke out from his older siblings as a solo act. Both rivals are still on television a lot: Osmond hosted a game show, "Pyramid," that's in syndication; Jackson's a regular on Court TV.
Osmond really does seem to live in Neverland, or some other place where aging is against the rules. At 47, he's still got the same face and smile that were plastered on young girls' bedroom walls more than three decades ago. He's not lost an ounce of cuddliness, either. He said that when he got married 27 years ago, he promised his wife he'd write a song for her. "I finally got around to it," he said before delivering "My Perfect Rhyme," a ballad from his latest (and 57th!) album. "Whenever You're in Trouble," another new original, was dedicated to his five sons. Both songs garnered oohs from the crowd.
The swooning swelled, and the tear ducts opened up, whenever Osmond threw an oldie into his two-hour set. He went deep into his songbook for "Crazy Horses," a 1972 almost-rock song that sounds hilariously like Deep Purple. He admitted that in the 1980s he tried to "get away from the whole image of 'Puppy Love,' " but began showing reverence for that hit and his other kid-pop smashes after a fan with a lot of dog years behind her told Osmond he had "no right to mess with my memories." At the Birchmere, renditions of "Go Away Little Girl," "Lonely Boy" and, of course, "Puppy Love" recalled the 45 rpm versions, and the largely female mass that stormed the front of the stage melted with each menace-free memory. What once seemed so saccharine now leaves a very sweet aftertaste.
-- Dave McKenna
