For decades, Donny Osmond has collected testimonials about a different kind of Osmond Brothers single.
James Hetfield of Metallica told Osmond the band covered this track in an old set list. The song was a favorite of Ozzy Osbourne. Duran Duran’s Simon LeBon has confessed he loves the single.
It is not “Puppy Love.” It’s “Crazy Horses,” a thunderous rocker that reached No. 2 on the U.K. charts (12 spots higher than the U.S.). Osmond has recalled that fans who turned out for concerts in Europe were primarily long-maned, jeans-wearing rockers expecting more Allman Brothers than Osmond Brothers.
“We’ve had all these people saying they we’re such closet fans of the Osmonds,” Osmond says. “Simon Le Bon told me, ‘It’s just not cool to to say that we used to like the Osmonds, but ‘Crazy Horses’ was just so out of the realm of who we thought the Osmonds were.’”
Osmond is using it as a flex to close his revamped and extended residency production at Harrah’s Showroom. The 68-year-old showman has expanded his stay on the Strip through June 21. The show runs 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays; tickets to the new dates are on sale 8 a.m. Thursday at ticketmaster.com/donny.
The deal formally launches Labor Day Weekend, on Sept. 5, growing Osmond’s residency at Harrah’s to six years after opening in August 2021.
Osmond is treating the year extension as a renewal and relaunch. He plans to turns loose “Crazy Horses” soon but no date set. This one is going to take some time to perfect.
As always, Osmond spins his bio throughout the show. He allows audience members to request any of his songs from a tableau of albums on the video screens. He revives a full Broadway production of his classic Disney hit from Mulan, “I’ll Make A Man Out Of You.”
Such styles as pop, smooth jazz, even barbershop build toward what was easily the Osmonds’ biggest rock hit. He’ll start a cappella and then “blow some minds.”
“We’re still in the process of building this thing, but the lighting and the CO2 and the lasers and the horses that are going to be on the screen — it’ll just be out of this world,” Osmond says. “It won’t be anything like anything else in the show. It’s going to have whole new elements, and it’s going to be so cool.”
Expect beach balls for this party.
Osmond has also written a new track for the “Donny & Marie” video tribute. His original “Moment in Time” supplants The Beatles’ “In My Life.”
“The lyrics are so much more appropriate for what we are trying to say, and I changed the video to where it’s not so much about slapstick comedy,” says Osmond, who co-starred with his sister at the Flamingo from 2008 to 2019. “It’s more about the performances of Donny and Marie in the 70s, so it’s a little classier, in my opinion.”
Osmond is maintaining his AI-recreated “Puppy Love” scene, reviving the 1972 hit with a duet of a reimagined, 14-year-old version of himself. His grandson, Daxton, has been the model for the figure Osmond calls “D-14.”
And Osmond is back with his 10-minutte “Auto-rap-ography,” jamming six decades of career highlights into an unbroken hip-hop suite. Osmond slots that number early in the show, a musical explainer to uninitiated fans of who he is and whence he came.
The headliner says the new show is the biggest production lift of his career.
“I’m having the time of my life right now, adding all these things, because we can,” Osmond says. “The new technologies, different lighting effects, pulling all these ideas out of my brain and saying, “Is this possible? Is that possible?’”
Osmond’s show covers a career in which he has collaborated with his famous siblings, the legendary Andy Williams, and even such entertainment superstars as Stevie Wonder and Jeff Beck.
“I have been very, very lucky to have been around people who know their way around the stage,” Osmond says. “I used to watch Sinatra. I would work with Andy. I would look work with all of these legends, and I would study them. I’m not thinking to myself, ‘I’m going to use this knowledge later on in my life at Harrah’s, but it is almost like you learn all of it through osmosis. You learn from legends what you can’t learn from school or out of a textbook.”
Osmond is the last of his generation of Osmonds still performing. He’s overcome assorted physical maladies over the years, powering through dance numbers and working with his band onstage.
Osmond is involved in every facet of the production. To pull a showbiz cliche that is true here, he’s treating every show like it’s his last.
“It’s very humbling, sometimes I feel like I’m the last man standing,” Osmond says. “I know there will come a time, and it’s around the corner, that I’m going to stop. I don’t want to get to the point where people say, ‘Give it up.’ If I can’t give that energy I put into the show, then the curtain ain’t gonna go up again. But I still have a lot of mojo in me.”
John Katsilometes’ column runs daily in the A section. Contact him at [email protected]. Follow @johnnykats on X, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram.