16 November 1962
Knowing that the Beatles asteroid was hurtling through deep space already at this point, the impulse here is to fear for the future of a variety singer whose trademark was yodelling. However, plenty of easy listening cabaret crooners saw out that putative extinction event; one of them even pips the best Beatles single to the UK number one spot. As for our yodeller, Frank Ifield, he clocks up another number one in Ireland after The Beatles first do so. (His biggest hit, ‘I Remember You’, predates the official Irish singles chart by a few months.)
As for ‘Lovesick Blues’, it’s an uptempo version of an old song previously made famous by Hank Williams – and yes, Hank Williams yodels on his version too. At the risk of a dragging from whatever Frank Ifield stans may still be upright and online, their boy’s yodelling money notes are at the expense of what is otherwise a surprisingly robust track. The production and arrangement by Norrie Paramor, the first of the big English producers, are quite sophisticated and moneyed: snazzy brass; twinkling glockenspiel or xylophone; a satisfying depth and texture to the soundscape. And Ifield’s non-Alpine voice is mature and modern; you could imagine that Frank Ifield making a decent fist of the later ’60s epics of Bacharach & David or Jimmy Webb. But no: the B-side here is ‘She Taught Me How To Yodel’, so that’s that.
