On My Mind

By Hilary Porter

I was thrilled to interview a true pop icon ...'Little Jimmy Osmond' just the other day.

Of course he is not so 'little' these days having long since celebrated his 50th birthday but he will be for ever immortalised in my mind as that cute, cherubic, chubby-faced nine-year-old who topped the charts at Christmas in 1972 with 'Long Haired Lover from Liverpool'.

It was one of those slightly cheesy novelty hits of the time that sit alongside songs like 'There's No One Quite Like Grandma' and 'Ernie ( The Fastest Milkman in the West').

After a half-hour chat on the phone I was so happy to be able to tell my colleagues that the youngest of the Osmond siblings was as lovely as I had hoped and it was interesting that he now runs the entire Osmond business.

As he said to me, the Osmonds are a brand which consist of five businesses: 'The Osmonds', 'Donny Osmond', 'Jimmy Osmond', 'Marie Osmond' and 'Donny and Marie Osmond'.

As I discussed this with a slightly younger journalist who shall remain nameless she said to me: "Wasn't Jimmy the big heart-throb of the Osmonds?"

"Oh no it was Donny, of course, "I said, putting her straight, singing a few bars of 'Puppy Love' and adding,"When I was young you either had a crush on Donny Osmond or David Cassidy."

Well before I could wax lyrical about how I was a devotee of the latter and, aged 10, had attended a David Cassidy concert which ended in us surrounding his dressing room and police spraying us with hose pipes to make us clear off, my colleague said to me: "Who is David Cassidy?!"

I was speechless! Didn't everyone know he was the Justin Bieber of the 70's! It is moments like that that leave you feeling incredibly old! It left me thinking, whatever happened to David Cassidy.

Nevertheless, The Osmond empire is still going strong. Not only do we have The Osmonds (only three of them now - Jimmy, Jay and Merrill) heading out on tour this Christmas time with gigs in Portsmouth and on the Isle of Wight in a show called 'The Andy Williams Christmas Extravaganza' , but we also have Jimmy appearing in his solo show 'Moon River and Me' at Bournemouth in September and Portsmouth in October. But to top it all, Donny brings his show 'The Soundtrack of My Life' to the BIC in January! Who would have imagined back in the day when we use to buy Jackie magazine and pin the double spread pull-out posters to our walls that we would be keeping such company with them here in Hampshire all these years later!

Riding high on the popularity of The Osmonds, Jimmy (the youngest sibling) had a massive hit with the song, in the process becoming the youngest person to ever reach number one on the UK Singles Chart aged 9 years 8 months.[2]

A UK number one for five weeks in December 1972,[1] it was the Christmas number one that year, and has since sold over a million copies in the UK.[3] It also reached #2 on the Australian Singles Chart (Kent Music Report) and #38 on the US, Billboard Hot 100.[4] Kingsley's 1969 version was an unsuccessful single, played by then-popular MOR station KMPC, Los Angeles.

However, Kingsley's record distributed by MGM, where the Osmonds recorded, was where Jim

five acts in the Osmonds: 'The Osmonds', 'Donny', 'Jimmy', 'Marie' and 'Donny and Marie'.

That's cool as we are like a car company like Ford. You have all these different vehicles that you are all driving. Some have leather seats some fabric but all get you there. We celebrate each other's success.

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