The “Golden Hits Of The 60s”
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FRANK IFIELD
“I REMEMBER YOU”
(Johnny Mercer, Victor Schertzinger)
Vee-Jay 457
No. 5 October 13, 1962
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“When I was 13, I worked with a fantastic old fellow called Big Chief Little Wolf, who taught me all the
intricacies of show business in the old-fashioned manner,” Ifield told Sheila Tracy, author of Who’s Who
in Popular Music in Great Britain. Frank (b. Nov. 30, 1937, Coventry, England) was a “spruker,” a “roll over
roll over,” or what we in the Far West might call a “come-on man.” His earliest of jobs, in other words,
was to get people to lay their money down for traveling tent shows and circuses.
Frank’s dad was an inventor and design engineer, and although the family was originally from England,
most of Frank’s youth was spent in Australia. It was in Sydney that he made his debut as a singer in 1950
at the Hornsby Pacific Theatre. Within a year, Frankie was making TV appearances and had recorded
his first single, “Did You See My Daddy Over There?” More than 40 other disks were to follow over the
next half-decade or so. By the end of his teen years, Frank lfield was reported to be the hottest vocal item
in Tasmania, New Zealand, and Australia.
Seeking to broaden his realm of influence, Ifield moved back to England in 1959, where under the
tutelage of Norrie Paramor, he was quickly signed to Columbia Records. His countrified cover version
of Carl Dobkins, Jr.’s “Lucky Devil” established him in 1960. For the next six years, Frank could do little
wrong: 15 singles charted in England. Three of these 45s–“l Remember You,” “Lovesick Blues,” and
“The Wayward Wind”–topped the British listings; according to New Music Express, this was a first in
British pop history. The only one of the trilogy to click in the States was “I Remember You,” a remake
of the Jimmy Dorsey hit from the Dorothy Lamour/Helen O’Connell flick The Fleet Is In (1942). Before
being mothballed, lfield’s disk became the first record to sell a million copies in the U.K. alone.
Frank’s stateside impact vanished as rapidly as the changing of the seasons. Although he did manage to
place three other singles on the Hot 100 and four more on the C & W charts, not one could respark the
nation’s interest.