No one has had a show business career quite like Donny Osmond.
That might sound like a hyperbolical statement, but in many ways the singer is a one of one.
As a preteen, Donny started his career singing in a family band with his siblings as the Osmond Brothers. They landed a gig singing at Disneyland only to be discovered by Andy Williams, who vaulted the crew to TV stardom on The Andy Williams Show in 1962. Donny would then embark on a very successful teen idol solo career that saw him grace the pages of Tiger Beat and turn out hits like "Puppy Love." In the late '70s he became a singing TV star alongside his sister with their popular variety program, The Donny & Marie Show. Decades later in the '90s, the duo also had an Emmy-winning daytime talk show, Donny & Marie. They then began an 11-year Las Vegas residency at the Flamingo.
Donny himself is still crushing the casino entertainment game, winning multiple awards for Best Show and Best Headliner from various Vegas publications within the past year for his current show at Harrah's.
But that's only the tip of Osmond's pop-cultural reach. Beyond releasing scores of albums (19 solo LPs alone), he's also made musical waves as the singing voice of Captain Li Shang in Mulan and became one of the most beloved performers in the title role of Andrew Lloyd Webber's classic musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (Osmond played Joseph in film adaptation as well as over 2,000 shows on stage).
Even scrolling his IMDB page is a treat: Who else had their own variety show and guested on Friends, The Love Boat, Space Ghost Coast to Coast, Hannah Montana, and a Weird Al music video? Nobody, that's who.
But perhaps the most unusual aspect of Osmond's full career is that he's still gaining new fans. Young kids are turning up at his shows not because their parents passed down their old music, but because Osmond has had wildly successful competitive reality TV turns. He won the first season of Dancing with the Stars and came in second in the first season of The Masked Singer (as the Peacock), allowing fans to find him as a current incredibly entertaining force rather than one relying on nostalgia from 50 or 60 years ago.
Before Osmond brings his award-winning Vegas show to Northern Quest Casino on Aug. 11, we caught up with the singer to chat about the variety of his live performance, having fans that span generations and... his rap game?!?
INLANDER: What do you enjoy about the Vegas show format? I know music trends sort of shifted away from the more traditional crooner type of show.
OSMOND: You probably have to see [my show] to understand why I'm kind of trying to open up the scope a little bit more, because it's not just your traditional type of Vegas crooner show. It's more of a hybrid of a pop show, rock show, Vegas show and Broadway show.
Of course it's Vegas-y. I was so proud of the fact that we were just voted the Best Show of Las Vegas. So you've got to have that Vegas element, right?
And that's why I'm spending the money bringing the entire show out, because I realize not everybody can go to Vegas. So I'm going to bring it out to the public. How do you bring the Best Show of Vegas out on the road unless you bring the entire production out? So my business manager is not very happy, because I'm spending a wad. [Laughs]
It's not just a crooner show. That stuff is involved, but it's a small element. But there's so much else that goes into the show.
Like the dancing...
Oh, the dancing would kill you. I mean, it kills me. [Laughs] When you win Dancing with the Stars, people expect to see dancing.
That's a bed you made.
I made it. I gotta sleep in it, man.
So is being able to mix and meld those elements — the theatrical, the early pop days, the dancing — what keeps things fun and interesting for you, especially when you have to run the show night after night when in residency?
That is exactly what the show is. It's not a potpourri of everything. I can't stand those kinds of shows where they just bring out the kitchen sink. It's like... enough.
But I have 60-plus years of show business experience, and I think I know how to put on a show. [Laughs]
I think people expect that crooner kind of show when they don't really know too much about it, and then they come in and they just get blown away. And with not just the production, but with the amount of things that I've done over the six decades.
I do a rap in the show. And when I came up with the idea, and I told [the show's director Raj Kapoor] about it, he started laughing. And I thought, "Well, that's kind of rude." And he said, "No, no! I'm not laughing about your idea. I'm laughing at the fact that I would spend money to watch Donny Osmond rap." And so we came up with this 10-minute rap that covers six decades of my career and it's backed up with video. And it gets faster and faster and faster. It's become a fan favorite.
The show is laborious to do, but it's also energizing because I live my entire life — 60 years of show business — in a couple hours every night.
You’ve going back to Joseph next year to play Pharaoh on a UK tour. What made you want to return to that show?
Well, when Andrew Lloyd Webber calls you and asks you if you want to do it, you don't say no. You don't say, “No, Andy. I don't think so!” In fact, I was doing a musical over in London about a year and a half ago called Panto, and he came to the show. And he kind of dropped this hint: “Would you ever think about playing the role of Pharaoh?” And just I said, “Now, that's an interesting idea. I've thought about it. But when the right time comes along, possibly.” So anyway, he calls me probably about a year later and says, “How about now?” Book it! Let's do it!
While your live show is not a forced potpourri, I imagine it becomes one in a way because different people are gonna want to hear "Puppy Love" or a tune from Mulan or Joseph songs or see you dancing or so many things that you've done that they adore both in the distant past and more contemporaneously.
Exactly. You're nailing it.
In fact, just as the tour started, I was at Harrah's and these two little boys — 9- and 12-year-old brothers — were sitting in the audience and they had these T-shirts on that said "Peacock." I mean, they don't know who Marie is. They don't know the Osmond Brothers. Andy Williams, who's that? All they wanted was to see the Peacock from the first season of The Masked Singer perform. It was the cutest thing ever.
During the request segment of one show, this young lady requested an obscure album track from an album back in the 1990s. And I said, 'How old are you?' She says, "24." I said, "Well, my name is Donny Osmond and I'm a singer, let me introduce myself to you." And everybody started laughing. And she says, "No, no! I adore you." I said, "But you're 24 years old." She says, "Eyes Don't Lie is one of my favorite albums of all time and you've got to sing 'Just Between You and Me.'" I said, "How do you know that song?" She said, "I listen to it every day." So I brought her up on stage, and she sang it with me. The audience went crazy.
And then right after that, this little 14 year old girl requested songs from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. I asked the 14 year old, "So did your parents bring you here?" She said, "No, I dragged my parents here." It's just fascinating.
So I gotta tell you, that request segment is so fun for me because I go from one extreme to the other musically: from stuff I did when I was 13 to this current album, and everything in between. ♦
Donny Osmond • Sun, Aug. 11 at 8 pm • $30-$364 • All ages • Northern Quest Resort & Casino • 100 N. Hayford Road, Airway Heights • northernquest.com
