The Osmond Brothers
Listen/Download – The Osmonds – Traffic In My Mind
Greetings all.
Greetings all.
“The Osmonds?” you say to yourself incredulously.
What? You didn’t know the Osmond brothers got their freak on in 1973 with their concept album about the Mormon faith?
Despite the patented weirdness of that sentence, it’s all true….I swear.
Actually, the Osmond horde were – despite their wholesome façade – capable of the occasional piece of outstanding music (see their version of Joe South’s ‘Yo Yo’).
‘Traffic In My Mind’ certainly falls into that category, but it is also something else indeed.
No matter how ‘Mormon’ the boys were, and they were REALLY Mormon, they clearly kept their ears open to the wider musical scene, and today’s selection is proof of that.
I think that the album was something of a sneak attack, with the blandest possible cover (a pencil drawing of the brothers) containing an interesting collection of tunes, the most interesting of which (by far) was ‘Traffic in My Mind’.
Sounding more like a salad tossed from bits of Alice Cooper and Grand Funk Railroad, ‘Traffic In My Mind’ runs on heavy, fuzzed out guitar, wailing vocals and sounds NOTHING like an Osmond Brothers record should.
I can’t imagine anyone but a hardcore Osmonds fan picking this out of a sonic line-up, which is a good thing.
I’m not here to tell you that this is anything but an anomaly, but it’s a good one, so there’s that.
Then of course there’s their next album, where they recorded with HB Barnum, covered a Solomon Burke tune, and appeared on the cover looking the an all-Mormon remake of ‘The Mack’.
I hope you dig it, and I’ll see you all next week.
Peace
Larry
Iron Leg 
Good choice. I’d be been wanting to hear this again, used to own it on both vinyl and 8 track, but somehow both have disappeared. Time to get the dollar bin!
The Osmonds did the theme for “Pretty Maids All In A Row” in 1971. Nice Lalo Schifrin/Mike Curb tune and plenty of non-Mormon cheesecake.