Born on 19 March 1913 in Collingwood near Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Herbert Henry Dawson passed away on 13 February 2008 in Sydney, New South Wales. When Dawson was still an infant his family moved to Warrnambool, and five years later he lost his mother. His father, a music-hall baritone who had trained first as a chemist and later as a physician, became permanently disabled by wounds sustained at Gallipoli; Dawson himself is recognized as a pioneer of Australian country music. In 1926 he quit school to help support the household and simultaneously took up singing, yodelling, concertina and harmonica at local dances. Growing up among relatives of the celebrated bushranger Ned Kelly, he absorbed numerous Irish-Australian ballads that would later form part of his repertoire.
By 1932 Dawson had added steel guitar and dobro to his skills and formed a duo with his brother Ted on bass and guitar. The pair performed outside Melbourne theatres and appeared on station 3JR; three years afterward they advanced to the more prominent 3KZ, broadcasting both as the Coral Island Boys and, capitalizing on the Hawaiian-music craze, the South Sea Island Boys. Dawson is credited with introducing the first electric steel guitar heard in Australia. In 1937, fronted by Peggy Brooks and augmented by additional musicians, the Smoky Dawson Show secured Pepsodent sponsorship and became Australia’s first live country broadcast on radio. Expanding his hillbilly material, he began appearing at theatres and rodeos, cutting his debut sides for Columbia Records in August 1941, among them the enduring “The Range In The Western Sky,” later revived by yodeller Mary Schneider.
Six further titles were recorded in 1942, yet army service halted his studio work for two years beginning in 1943. Initially posted to the Medical Corps, he transferred to the Entertainment Unit and was stationed in Borneo at the war’s close. Returning to civilian life and newly married to Dot—a union that endured more than six decades—he turned to scriptwriting and producing his own radio programs. He toured with the Gill Brothers Rodeo, incorporating knife- and battle-axe-throwing at human targets together with stock-whip displays. Six additional songs were waxed in 1948, including the signature “My Heart Is Where The Roper Flows Tonight.” Drawing on personal experiences, he supplied songs and stories for the ABC’s new series Inlander, whose star was the distinguished vocalist Peter Dawson. Although unrelated, the two men became close friends; Peter Dawson invariably introduced Smoky as his “illustrious nephew,” while Smoky in turn addressed him as “great Uncle Snakeskin Pete.”
Nineteen fifty-one proved pivotal. Dawson traveled to England, where BBC Television broadcast his act—including knife-throwing—live from the Festival of Britain. He also undertook a U.S. tour on behalf of the Australian government, accompanied by a kangaroo named Zip, and found time to record eighteen titles, among them the popular “The Man From Never Never” and “The Wild Colonial Boy.” He revisited Nashville the following year, appeared with Ernest Tubb, signed with Acuff-Rose Music and cut sides for the Hickory label. While promoting the film Kangaroo he performed on Broadway in Kiss Me Kate, wielding whip and knives; although Lew Grade offered him a role in Paint Your Wagon, contractual obligations to a national radio series on outback life prevented acceptance. The Adventures Of Smoky Dawson, featuring his wonder horse Flash and sponsored by Kellogg’s, became a national fixture that ran for ten years until 1962, when the cast, not the audience, finally tired of the program. Flash, whose Australian fame rivaled that of Roy Rogers’ Trigger in the United States, died in 1982 at age thirty-five. Between 1956 and 1974 the pair made countless joint appearances, among them leading the annual Sydney Spring Festival parade.
During the 1950s Dawson completed nine more recording sessions. In 1957 he founded the Smoky Dawson Ranch, which occupied the bulk of his time for over two decades until he leased the property. The site hosted country shows, assorted entertainments, an amusement park, a stunt school and a holiday camp; he additionally served as technical adviser and livestock supplier for films and television productions. These commitments curtailed touring until, at age sixty, he resumed recording in 1973. From 1973 to 1979 he made daily appearances on Channel 9 and returned to the road. In 1978 he joined fellow pioneers Tex Morton and Buddy Williams as the third inductee into the Country Music Roll Of Renown, Australia’s counterpart to Nashville’s Country Music Hall of Fame. That same year he received a special award in Nashville for services to country music; the following year he headlined the All Time Greats Show and accepted a pioneer award from the American Country Music Association. He also lectured on Australian life and performed at numerous American colleges and schools. In Australia he and Flash were commemorated in wax at Tamworth’s Gallery of Stars, and in 1978, matching Slim Dusty, he was appointed MBE in the New Year’s Honours List.
Although he sang many western songs early on and cultivated a cowboy persona throughout his career, Dawson retained a lifelong devotion to his homeland; his recordings reveal that he actually cut very few numbers outside the realm of Australiana. At ninety-two he issued an entirely new album in 2005. His death three years later elicited tributes from around the globe.
