Frank Ifield sits down with 2RRR

Brian Crabbe caught up with the entertainer for four-part series, ‘There goes that song again.’


Frank Ifield has been in show business for over 65 years.  

His career began in 1952 – aged 14 – following his appearance on 2GB’s ‘Amateur Hour’, and he made his first records for EMI the following year when he was only 15.  

Live performances followed and Frank was regularly on Sydney radio. When television began in Australia in late 1956, he was the first to have his own music show, ‘Campfire Favourites’, on Chanel 9.   

English-born Frank returned to the UK in late 1959 to try his luck, and soon appeared on British TV, in the theatre and in the recording studio at EMI’s Abbey Road.   

In 1962, he achieved international success with his recording of ‘I remember you’. It topped the charts in the UK, as did his next two records, making him the first artist in Britain to have three number one hits in a row. 

Now 80 years of age, Frank reminisces about his long career and about some of the many other artists he has worked with over the years, in a series of four one-hour specials presented by Brian Crabbe on ‘There goes that song again’.   

Frank performed on live programs on almost all Sydney radio stations in the 1950s, and shares with Brian stories of taking his records to two of the most popular Sydney radio presenters of the era, John Harper on 2KY and Tony Withers on 2SM. In more recent years, Frank was also a country music presenter on 2KY.

Brian and Frank can be heard on the Ryde-Hunters Hill community station 2RRR 88.5 FM in Sydney and at www.2rrr.org.au, on Tuesdays at 3pm, beginning on 27th February and continuing on alternate Tuesdays: 13th and 27th March and 10th April.    

Repeats can be heard on Fridays at 11am on 2nd, 16th and 30th March and 13th April.

 

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