legendary Australian singer Frank Ifield dead at 86

Frank Ifield

Music legend Frank Ifield died peacefully in his sleep on Saturday night at the age of 86. News of his death was shared on Facebook by his friend, music historian and journalist Glenn A. Baker. Ifield is survived by his wife, Carol Wood, and his two children from his former marriage to Gillian Bowden.

Baker wrote: “I just received a call from David Ifield, telling me that his brother Frank Ifield died peacefully this Saturday night at the age of 86. There is much that can be said about this remarkable man, whose There were four number ones in the UK, three of them by the Beatles (whose concerts they briefly supported).

Ifield was born in Coventry, England in 1937 to Australian parents. His father was an inventor who created the Ifield pump, a device used in fuel systems for jet aircraft.

In 1948, the family returned to Australia, where young Frank received a ukulele for his birthday and quickly learned to play.

He later recalled on his website, “One day it accompanied me to school, where the headmaster encouraged me to set Australian poetry to my tunes and then present them to the class.”

“This experience whetted my appetite for what I intuitively knew I wanted.”

While still in his teens, he became a regular member of the popular radio show Bonington Bunkhouse and played lead roles in several shows around Sydney.

Signing to EMI Records, he released dozens of singles before national service put a temporary halt to his career in 1957.

After demotion, he moved back to Britain, where he soon became a household name.

He scored his first number one hit in 1962 with a cover of I Remember You – originally written by American songwriter Johnny Mercer about his affair with Judy Garland.

The yodeling ballad topped the charts for seven weeks, selling over one million copies and later peaking at number five in the US.

Ifield’s success was quickly followed by Lovesick Blues (1962) and Wayward Wind (1963) – making him the second artist after Elvis Presley to score three consecutive number one singles in the UK.

Throughout his career, Ifield was renowned for his unique singing style, which included yodeling with a mesmerizing falsetto. This led him to excel in the 1962 Eurovision Song Contest, where he finished second in that year’s heats.

Ifield also had great success in film and television – for example, in 1965, he starred in the feature film Up Jumped a Swagman. He also led two half-hour TV specials, The Frank Ifield Show (1964) and Frank Ifield Sings (1965), and appeared on many established programs such as In Melbourne Tonight, Top of the Pops, Celebrity Squares and Spicks and Specks.

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