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artistry and venture outside the confines of L.T.D. were prevented by those he thought were in his corner.

“I think what happened was I was really evolving at the time as a songwriter and I had so many people coming at me, wanting me to write songs for them. Back then, we had this thing, which I don’t know why we did, but we had a songwriter’s agreement, which was an exclusive songwriter’s agreement that we signed within the group. So they wouldn’t allow me to write songs for other artists,” Osborne explained, adding that things got so bad that L.T.D. prevented him from doing guest performances and capitalizing on his record label’s desire for him to do a solo project and still remain in the group. “They squashed that. So as far as me being able to evolve, I couldn’t go any further because they stifled me. They personally stifled me. So it was time for me to leave.”

Despite remaining with L.T.D. for an extra year, the ill will continued upon Osborne’s exit.

“They said they would give me all the releases and they held everything back. They would not give me the releases,” he said. “So I couldn’t even sign my deal with A&M Records for a solid year. I had to wait a year after I left the group before I could sign with them because A&M wanted to sign me to a publishing deal and they wanted it to run concurrently with the artist deal. So they kind of blocked that from me.

“There was a whole lot that went on even after that. I knew, at that point, that there wasn’t gonna to be many times I would be getting back together with them.” continued Osborne. “It ended ugly. It didn’t have to, but I think I had to move on because I was being…at that point I wasn’t able to grow any further.”

Past feelings aside, Osborne is thankful for L.T.D., who he says he occasionally runs into.

“They’re [L.T.D.] out doing shows. They’re probably not doing as well as they’d like to, but they are still out performing and I see the guys from time to time and I really wish them the best.”

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This is a story we hear about all too often- groups breaking up basically over money issues, or one member of the group getting more shine than the others. That’s a tough topic because on one hand, it’s only fair that the person who’s doing the work get compensated for their musical contributions and be allowed to soar if he’s in demand, as long as it won’t interfere with the group’s progression. On the other hand, some may say that all group members should get treated equally, as long as they all put in equal amounts of blood, sweat, and tears to play their role to keep the group’s progression moving forward.

This is why we applaud groups like Earth, Wind and Fire and The Isleys, who have managed to stick it out through thick and thin- deaths, money problems…everything. It would have been great to see L.T.D. work it out like that, but hey, at least we still have those timeless classics they created like the ones on the next page…