Born in the United Kingdom, Ifield grew up in rural Australia where he started performing hillbilly music in his teens.

In 1986, he contracted pneumonia, which resulted in removal of part of a lung and damage to his vocal cords.

[1] His parents had travelled to England in 1936,[2] where his father was an inventor and engineer who created the Ifield fuel pump, used in jet aircraft, for Lucas Industries.

[1][3][4] The Ifield family returned to Australia in January 1948 aboard the liner RMS Orion.

[1] He was given a guitar in 1949 by his grandmother and was self-taught;[5] he also taught himself to yodel, by imitating country stars, including Hank Snow.

"[7] His third single was a cover version of "Abdul Abulbul Amir" (September 1954), which was backed by his own composition, "A Mother's Faith".

[6] In 1957, he recorded the track "Whiplash", which was used as the theme song for the British/Australian TV series of the same title from September 1960 to mid-1961.

[10] Ifield had two top 30 hits in that year on the Kent Music Report, with "True" (September, No.

[15] His next six singles had less commercial success, but he had his first UK number-one hit with a cover version of the Victor Schertzinger and Johnny Mercer 1941 composition "I Remember You" (May 1962),[16] which topped the charts for seven weeks.

[18] It is Ifield's highest charting single on the United States Billboard Hot 100, reaching No. 5.

[6] "Lovesick Blues", originally sung by Hank Williams, was treated in an upbeat "Let's Twist Again" style.

Ifield was also featured on Jolly What!, a 1964 compilation comprising eight of his tracks and four by the Beatles, which has been considered an attempt to cash in on Beatlemania.

Despite changing trends, Ifield continued to have further top 40 hits in that decade including "Angry at the Big Oak Tree" (April 1964), "I Should Care" (July), "Paradise" (August 1965), "No One Will Ever Know" (June 1966), and "Call Her Your Sweetheart" (September).

The song was mentioned by Victor Meldrew in the One Foot in the Grave episode, "Love and Death".

[28] Ifield starred as Dave Kelly, and Bowden appeared as a dancer in the comedy musical film Up Jumped a Swagman (December 1965).

As a result, his vocal cords were damaged, which meant he could not sing or yodel for years until they recovered.

"[40] On 10 June 2012, Ifield joined Paul Hazell on his World of Country show[41] on the community radio station Uckfield FM.

It was inaugurated in 1976 and the inductee is announced at the Country Music Awards of Australia in Tamworth every January.