One of the Osmond brothers has died. Wayne Osmond who was a singer, guitarist and founding member of the family band, was 73.

His brother Merrill posted that Wayne died after having a “massive stroke,” The Associated Press reported.

The New York Times said Wayne Osmond died on Jan. 1 at the University of Utah Hospital.

Wayne was the fourth of nine children born into the Osmond family but was the second oldest in the band which was comprised at the start by Wayne, Alan Merrill and Jay. They had been a barbershop quartet in the 1950s, the AP reported.

They started the group as a way to make money to sponsor mission trips as members of the Mormon faith, the Times reported.

They were performing at Disneyland when the father of entertainer Andy Williams told his famous son about the group.

Williams was hosing his variety program “The Andy Williams Show” where they made their debut on December 13, 1962.

The Osmond Brothers were frequent guests on Williams’ show. They became a quintet when younger brother Donny joined the group.

They became the Osmonds, dropping “brothers” from their band name.

They found fame on the radio and on tours in the 1970s, but the group’s star power faded while Donny and Marie had successful careers as a duo or solo performers, the AP reported.

Wayne Osmond was diagnosed with a tumor in 1994 after noticing he was having trouble performing music.

“One day when I was working in Branson, I noticed I couldn’t play my saxophone anymore because my head would start throbbing,” Wayne said. “And my knees would fall out from under me when I was on stage. This all began happening within a week,” he told Coping Magazine in 2004, the 10-year anniversary of his diagnosis..

“I was diagnosed with ependymoma – a childhood cancer that is very fatal for kids. It was located up behind my cerebellum. For where it was it was pretty big – it was an inch around and two inches long.”

It took 17 hours to remove most of the cancer from his brain, he said. He then went through six weeks of radiation treatment.

Six months after diagnosis he said he went back to performing.

In 2012 he had a stroke that made him lose the ability to play guitar since he lost his hearing, the AP reported.

“I’ve had a wonderful life. And you know, being able to hear is not all that it’s cracked up to be, it really isn’t,” he told the Deseret News in 2018. “My favorite thing now is to take care of my yard. I turn my hearing aids off, deaf as a doorknob, tune everything out, it’s really joyful.”

He along with his bothers Alan, Merrill and Jay, performed for what their sister called their final live performance on “The Talk” in 2019, The Washington Post reported.

His family remembered Wayne Osmond on social media.

Donny wrote that “He was the ultimate optimist and was loved by everyone.”

Merrill Osmond said that his brother was humble and a genius.

Wayne Osmond leaves behind his wife Kathlyn and five children, 20 grandchildren and eight siblings, the Times reported.

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