With his next hit, The Wayward Wind, Ifield became the first British artist to reach number one with three consecutive records; the only other artist to have achieved this at the time was Elvis Presley. The song had been recorded by several artists (including Jimmy Young), but Ifield modelled his version on that of the American Gogi Grant, who had had a No 1 hit with it in the US in 1956.
Ifield’s version went head-to-head with The Beatles’ Please Please Me but just held on to the number one slot before being toppled by Cliff Richard’s Summer Holiday in March 1963. His fourth single, Nobody’s Darlin’ But Mine, another vintage number dating from 1930, reached number four, but in July 1963 he had another number one with Confessin’ (That I Love You). On the B-side was an up-tempo arrangement of Waltzing Matilda, which earned considerable air play in itself.
As the Mersey Sound swept all before it, Ifield continued to star on British variety bills, late-night cabaret at Butlins, and in pantomime at the London Palladium. When the hits dried up, he concentrated exclusively on country music, but in 1988 his vocal cords were damaged during an operation and he was unable to sing as before.
Latterly he worked as a television presenter in Australia.
In 2007, when an Australian girl group called the Waifs were asked to sing I Remember You as a tribute to Ifield who, at 69, was the oldest inductee at a Hall of Fame ceremony in Melbourne, none of the Waifs had heard of him.
The theatre critic Kenneth Tynan once reviewed Ifield “under the insane misapprehension that he was blind”, confusing him with a blind vocalist of similar name. “I often wonder,” he mused in his diaries, “what he thought when he read the review in which I congratulated him on the gallantry with which he had overcome his handicap.”
Frank Ifield married, in 1965, Gillian Bowden, a dancer whom he met while working at the London Palladium, and with whom he had two children. The couple divorced in 1988 and in 1992, he married, secondly, Carole Wood, an air hostess.
Frank Ifield, born November 30 1937, died May 18 2024
Sophie Anderson, a UK-based writer, is your guide to the latest trends, viral sensations, and internet phenomena. With a finger on the pulse of digital culture, she explores what’s trending across social media and pop culture, keeping readers in the know about the latest online sensations.
