Frank Ifield: 1960s chart phenomenon dies aged 86

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 how to play.

“It accompanied me to school one day, where the headmaster encouraged me to adapt Australian poetry to my own tunes and then perform them to the class,” he later recalled on his website, external.

“This experience whetted my appetite for what I instinctively knew was to be my calling.”

While still in his teens, he became a regular on popular radio show Bonnington’s Bunkhouse, and headlined several country venues around Sydney.

Signed to EMI records, he released dozens of singles before national service put a temporary hold on his career in 1957.

After demobbing, he travelled back to the UK, where he quickly became a household name.

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

The yodelling ballad topped the charts for seven weeks, selling more than one million copies, and later hit number five in the US.

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