Someone That Many Remember … (Well Frankly I certainly do)

I spent many years on the peripheries of the music industry in operating teenage dances at Fairfield and Cabramatta in the mid-1960s, later in producing and hosting music programs on what was then Radio Station 2CCR, now called Alive 90.5, of which I was also the Chairman.

My wife and I were also on the founding committee that established “Jazz at The Pines” at Dural. I can remember that Dave Westray, a Board Member at 2CCR, on one occasion, told me that he had spotted Frank Ifield at the station and had commented to him “I Remember You”. Many readers may remember that one of Frank Ifield’s biggest hits was the song “I Remember You”.

Frank Ifield lived at Dural and my wife and I met up with him at The Pines back in 1998 or 99 where he was performing at a country music show. It was at Dural that I obtained a signed copy of what, was then, his latest album entitled “The Fire Still Burns” recorded in 1997.

During an interview in the 1990s he revealed that he was the first artist to have his own show on television other than the various news readers. Frank Ifield’s show was titled “Campfire Favourites” on TCN 9. Another of Frank’s big hits was “She Taught Me To Yodel” He went on, during the interview, to reveal that he discovered the ability to yodel whilst milking his cow “Betsy” whilst listening to the radio at Dural.

He also tells a humorous story on recording yodelling onto records in the early days of his recording career. At the EMI recording studio in the early 1950s, where the records were recorded direct to wax, two microphones were set up, one in the recording studio and a second in the toilet, the vocal singing was done in the studio and to get a more perfect sound of the yodelling together with the echo, he had to pause and rush out to the toilet to record the yodel. He said that he just had to hope that no one would rush in and flush the toilet.

Frank showed his sense of humour when he told a story from his childhood days (he started performing from a very young age). He was at the Auburn Town Hall where he was to perform in a show and talking to another performer, Buster Noble. The Mayor was on stage giving a speech and during the course of which, said “frankly I feel” and Frank Ifield misheard, and thinking it was his cue, rushed out onto the stage. He said that he felt a right pillock.

The enjoyment of singing had been with him for as long as he could remember. He went on to talk about where he felt the freedom of the bush, when his Australian parents returned the family to Australia following WW II. Frank Ifield was born in Coventry, England. Little did he think as a child that his voice would one day echo around the world or that he would make a living out of what seemed so natural to him.

Whilst music was his first love, his second love, he said, was meeting and interacting with people and this was fulfilled by performing all over the world and, thirdly, he had a love of travelling so he felt that he was custom-made for showbiz.

Whilst residing in England for a number of years, in 1986 he contracted pneumonia, which resulted in removal of part of a lung and damage to his vocal cords. He relocated to Sydney in 1988 and was unable to sing or yodel for years as he recovered.

Frank Ifield married Gillian Bowden, a dancer at the London Palladium, on 6 July 1965 at Marylebone Register Office, London. He starred as Dave Kelly, and Bowden appeared as a dancer in the comedy musical film “Up Jumped a Swagman” (December 1965).

The couple had two children. He and Bowden divorced in 1988 and he returned to Sydney to live. In 1992, he married Carole Wood, an airline hostess. Frank Ifield died in Hornsby Hospital of pneumonia on 18 May 2024, at the age of 86.