Frank Ifield, 1960s pop sensation, dead at 86
The Australian singer, Frank Ifield, who had a string of hit singles in Britain during the 1960s, passed away aged 86 on May 18th.
Although Ifield was an Australian citizen, he was born in the United Kingdom, and lived in Britain for the first 11 years of his life before his parents, who were Australian, took their family back to their native country. Nevertheless, Ifield kept a fondness in his heart for the UK, and moved back in 1959 with ambitions of chasing a music career.
Before making the decision to return to Britain, Ifield had already embarked on a recording career in Australia, but in order to step things up a level, he came to the UK with ambitions of chasing his dreams, which were answered buoyantly.
While his first UK single, ‘Lucky Devil’, was somewhat of a success, it took until 1962 for Ifield to announce himself on a grand scale with ‘I Remember You’ which stayed atop of the singles chart for seven weeks.
In total, Ifield had four number one singles in the United Kingdom, three of which occurred before The Beatles began their chart monopoly throughout the ’60s. Notably, Ifield played a hand in the success of the Fab Four, who opened for him in concert after Brian Epstein organised the arrangement, showcasing The Beatles for the first time outside of Liverpool.
Although they quickly surpassed Ifield in status and popularity, his role in their career was seismic at the time, even though The Beatles soon went onto bigger and better things.
By the late ’60s, Ifield’s relevancy had dwindled significantly, and he was no longer troubling the hit parade as he did during his younger years. Remarkably, he made an unexpected comeback in 1991 with ‘The Yodelling Song’ which brought him to the attention of a new generation and entered the Top 40 of the UK chart.
Despite not releasing a full-length album since 1985, Ifield continued to tour into his later years, and last visited the UK for a series of live dates in 2018.
His death was confirmed by friend, Glenn A. Baker, who is also a music historian and journalist. Baker revealed that Ifield died “peacefully” on May 18th but didn’t reveal his cause of death. The late musician previously overcame health problems in 1986 when he was diagnosed with pneumonia that impacted his voice, yet didn’t prevent Ifield from returning to the stage to perform his craft.
On his website, Ifield reflected on his career and how one song changed his entire trajectory: “My contract with Columbia was about to elapse when in the nick of time came the winning format in ‘I Remember You’. This mind-boggling record-breaking smash hit, which was acclaimed as the first single to sell one million copies in Britain, proved to be the catalyst needed to fulfil my goal of playing the Palladium.”
The Australian poignantly continued to explain how ‘I Remember You’ brought him everything he ever wanted, adding: “Yet this too was more than I dreamed of, for it was a Royal Command Performance and paved the way for me to regularly headline shows from the stage of this Mecca of Show-business doing Pantomimes; Summer Seasons; Variety Shows; Specials and TV productions. Time brought about other accolades.”
Most notably, he concluded: ‘The following two singles put me in the Guinness Book Of Records as the first artist in Britain to have three number ones in a row. The third #1 single ‘Wayward Wind’ did battle with a new band that I had just given a break to as support act on my one-night-stand touring show – The band was the Beatles, who up to then had only worked in Liverpool.”
Never Miss A Beat
The Far Out Music Newsletter
All the latest music news from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.