Frank Ifield

World success with
I Remember You
on US label Vee-Jay

Frank Ifield (born November 30, 1937 in Coventry ) is an English-speaking singer who was successful in the genres of country and pop music, mainly in Australia and Great Britain in the 1950s and 1960s.

Life

Ifield lived with his family in Great Britain for eight years, then the Ifields emigrated to Australia in 1946 and settled in Dural, northwest of Sydney . Frank grew up in a musically committed family. His grandfather was a singer and dancer in a minstrel show . His parents gave him a ukulele for his 11th birthday , and when he was 12 he got a guitar from his grandfather as a Christmas present. Ifield discovered his love for country music, and at the age of 13 he was already performing country songs on an amateur show on an Australian radio station. This was followed by appearances in several public music events. In 1955 he recorded his first single with the Australian record company Regal Zonophone, entitled Did You See My Daddy Over There / There's a Love Knot in My Lariat (catalog number G25400). His musical career was interrupted in 1957 by military service, after which he struggled to find his way back into show business. It was only through appearances on television shows that his name became known again. Another career boost was heralded in 1959 by switching to the Columbia label , where 27 singles were released in Australia by 1967.

First UK chart success
Lucky Devil
on Columbia 4399

His manager Peter Gormely prepared Ifield's return to Great Britain in late 1959 with an appearance at the London Palladium . This was also favored by the fact that the Columbia label was also represented there. After touring various television shows, Norrie Paramor became Ifield's new manager, and Columbia UK released Ifield's first single Lucky Devil / Nobody Else But You (# 4399) in early 1960 . The track Lucky Devil immediately found its way into the British music charts , where it achieved the best rating at number 22. Then it took until 1962 before Ifield came to his first major record success. With the yodel song I Remember You , which was sold millions of times, he also made his international breakthrough. The title ranked # 1 not only in the UK but also in Ireland , Australia and New Zealand . The song came in second in South Africa and fourth in Canada . I Remember You also garnered prominence in the United States , where Billboard ranked it # 5. It was also the first Ifield release on the US record market, released by the record company Vee-Jay , which brought six Ifield singles to the US market by 1963. Later, Capitol Records (1963-1965) and Hickory (1966-1970) took over the distribution of the Ifield records in the States. Ifield was less successful with I Remember You in Germany. The title was published by the German Columbia branch in October 1962 under catalog number 22326, but only reached 39th place at Musikmarkt. On the back of the record, Ifield sang the German-language title So Easy To Learn To Yodel , a cover version of his song She Taught Me How to Yodel .

Ifield continued to storm the charts in Great Britain. The 1962 successor title Lovesick Blues became a number 1 hit again. In 1963 the titles The Wayward Wind and I'm Confessin also reached the top position. His first LP I'll Remember You, released in Great Britain in 1962, was just as successful . Until 1966 Ifield was regularly represented in the UK charts, but after 1963 the successes were limited to Great Britain. His last top 50 success was Call Her Your Sweetheart in 1966. In the same year Ifield appeared on the occasion of his contract with the US record company Hickory at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee , and received honorary citizenship of the state of Tennessee .

When In 1969 Ifield's record deal with British Columbia expired, he released two singles on Decca Records in 1969 . In 1970 he founded his own label with Frank Ifield Records (FIR). In 1980 he was included in the Guinness Book Of Records , which recorded him in the UK pop charts for 158 weeks and number 24 in the top 100 of all time. When his father died of cancer in Australia in 1982 and Ifield's marriage broke up after 17 years, the stress caused severe pneumonia and he had to undergo lung surgery. Only after a year was he able to perform again, he appeared on various radio and television shows and again toured the UK and Europe. In 1991 he returned to the UK charts as "Frank Ifield featuring The Backroom Boys" with the re-recording of his 1962 hit She Taught Me How to Yodel , where the title reached number 40. In 2007 Ifield was honored with the induction into the ARIA Hall of Fame .

Discography

Albums

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)			Remarks
year	title	UK	US	Country	Remarks
1962	I'll remember you	UK3 (36 weeks) UK	-	-
1963	Born Free	UK3 (32 weeks) UK	-	-
1964	Blue skies	UK10 (12 weeks) UK	-	-
1964	Frank Ifield's Greatest Hits	UK9 (3 weeks) UK	-	-
1966	Frank Ifield's Tale of Two Cities	-	-	Country35 (4 weeks) Country

gray hatching : no chart data available for this year

More albums

1959: Yours Sincerely
1963: Frank Ifield
1965: Portrait in Song
1965: Up Jumped a Swagman
1975: Joanne

Singles

year	Title album	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes)			Remarks
year	Title album	UK	US	Country	Remarks
1960	Lucky Devil	UK22 (8 weeks) UK	-	-
1960	Gotta get a date	UK49 (1 week) UK	-	-
1962	I remember you	UK1 (28 weeks) UK	US5 (11 weeks) US	-
1962	Lovesick blues	UK1 (17 weeks) UK	US44 (7 weeks) US	-
1963	The Wayward Wind	UK1 (13 weeks) UK	-	-
	Nobody's Darlin 'but Mine	UK4 (16 weeks) UK	-	-
	Confessin '(That I Love You)	UK1 (16 weeks) UK	US58 (7 weeks) US	-
	Mule train	UK22 (6 weeks) UK	-	-
1964	Don't blame me	UK8 (13 weeks) UK	-	-
	Angry at the Big Oak Tree	UK25 (8 weeks) UK	-	-
	I should care	UK33 (3 weeks) UK	-	-
	Summer is over	UK25 (6 weeks) UK	-	-
	Please	-	US71 (6 weeks) US	-
1965	Paradise	UK26 (9 weeks) UK	-	-
1966	No One Will Ever Know	UK25 (4 weeks) UK	-	Country42 (6 weeks) Country
1966	Call Her Your Sweetheart	UK24 (11 weeks) UK	-	Country28 (14 weeks) Country
1968	Good morning, dear	-	-	Country67 (3 weeks) Country
1968	Oh, Such a Stranger	-	-	Country68 (4 weeks) Country
1991	She Taught Me How to Yodel	UK40 (4 weeks) UK	-	-	with The Backroom Boys

More singles

1959: True
1959: Teenage Baby
1965: Don't Make Me Laugh
1965: Lonesome Number One
1967: Out of Nowhere
1967: Up, Up and Away
1969: It's My Time
1972: Daddy Don't You Walk So Fast

literature

Frank Ifield, I Remember Me - The First 25 Years , Authors OnLine Ltd. 2005, ISBN 978-0755205011

Web links

Individual evidence

^ ARIA Hall of Fame. Australian Recording Industry Association , accessed August 6, 2017 .
↑ ^a ^b Chart sources: UK US

personal data
SURNAME	Ifield, Frank
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	British pop singer
DATE OF BIRTH	November 30, 1937
PLACE OF BIRTH	Coventry

[1] ARIA Hall of Fame. Australian Recording Industry Association , accessed August 6, 2017 .

[charts-2] Chart sources: UK US