Country legend Smoky Dawson (1913-2008) was considered Australia's first "singing cowboy," modeling himself in the style of American movie stars such as Gene Autry and Roy Rogers who took folk-ish material and gave it a professionalized, nostalgic gloss. Born Herbert Henry Brown, Dawson grew up in rough home and lived in an orphanage in Melbourne until he came of age. Musically gifted, he sang locally as a young child and started his professional career in the 1930s. Settling on western music mid-decade, he landed his first radio show in 1937, and cut his first commercial recordings in 1941; like many early country pioneers the bulk of Dawson's recordings came out before the popularization of long play albums, and up until the 1970s most of his LPs were in fact collections of earlier singles.
Following World War Two, Smoky Dawson became a tireless touring artist, appearing in rodeos and circus shows across Australia, performing both as a musician and as a rodeo act. In the 1950s he took up acting, and starred in his own radio drama, The Adventures Of Smoky Dawson, in which his good-guy persona echoed that of his idols, Autry and Rogers. He also started his own musical venue, the Smoky Dawson Ranch, which doubled as a dude ranch and youth camp. Smoky Dawson won numerous musical and civic awards, including induction into the Australian Hall of Fame, as well as an OBE (Order of the British Empire) and an OA (Order Of Australia) for his lifetime's work. Here's a quick look at his music...
Smoky Dawson "The Land Where I Was Born: The Regal Zonophone Collection" (EMI/Regal Zonophone Records, 2006)
Like many classic country artists from the pre-LP era, a hefty chunk of Smoky Dawson's early, career-defining work came out on 78rpm singles, and was not gathered into albums until many years later. One of the most definitive archival sets is this series from EMI, which does deep dives into the vaults of Regal Zonophone, the label which recorded the majority of Australia's foundational country music, back in the 1930s and '40s. Three CDs worth of bush ballads and rejiggered American cowboy songs may be more than enough for just about any casual listener, but if you want to satisfy your curiosity about Dawson't early work, this is probably the quickest way to settle matter. Notably, the sprawling multi-disc collection is short on regionally-themed Australian novelty songs, though there are several: "Never Been To Gundagai," "Cullenbenbong," "Ooleera (Mighty Mountain Of The West)," "Jindawarrabell," "The Kookaburra Yodel," and of course a renidition of "The Wild Colonial Boy," among others. But there's also a slew of songs with more general country themes, including well-known classics such as "Texas Lil," "Married By The Bible Divorced By The Law," and others, including later hits from the honkytonk era, such as "Hillbilly Fever" and "Crazy Arms." Almost all of the songs are Smoky Dawson as a solo artist, though there are also a couple of duets with cowgal Lily Connors. If you want to hear the stuff that made Dawson famous, start here.
Smoky Dawson "When The Bloom Is On The Sage" (Larrikin Records, 1999)
This set was part of an archival series curated by Larrikin label founder, folklorist Warren Fahey, who tapped into radio shows, concert recordings and other sources to fill out the picture on the earlier days of the Australian country scene. This disc is about half spoken word, with "commentaries" by Dawson and his reminiscence on various topics.
Smoky Dawson "The Great Australian Singer/Songwriter" (BACM, 2006)
A more straightforward set of early musical offerings, with significant (if not complete) overlap with EMI's three-disc Regal Zonophone collection, above.
Smoky Dawson/Various Artists "A Life In Song" (Glenample Records, 2006)
Starting in the 1970s, Dawson was backed by The Howie Brothers -- Graeme Howie and John Howie, formerly of the band 1901, who paid tribute to Dawson on a 1981 album, and became his sidekicks for a few years afterwards. This capacious, sixty song, three-CD(!) set gathers what I assume is their entire collaborative ouvre, which leaned pretty heavily into regional material, though there are are some "secular" country songs as well. One gem is the novelty number "Everybody Knows Why Everybody Goes To Tamworth," about a town in New South Wales that's Australia's equivalent to Nashville, the center of much of the continent's country music recording industry. It's one of several tracks recorded with the band Grand Junction; other guests include singers Trevor Knight, Babs McKinnon, Mary Schneider and Jean Stafford. This appears to have pretty much all the same material as the slightly more modest I'll Paint You A Song collection, below.
Smoky Dawson/Various Artists "I'll Paint You A Song" (Rajon Records, 2006)
A 2-CD set which seems to draw on some of Dawson's later recordings, including collaborations with the Howie Brothers, as well as with the band Grand Junction. This set shares the same name with a 1984 album by Dawson (see below) featuring the title track, which was a duet with Australian country singer Jean Stafford.
Smoky Dawson "Sings And Tells Of Bushrangers, The Outback And Famous Country Songs" (Jasmine Records, 2019)
A straight reissue of two of Dawson's early LPs, which in turn were collections of many of his old original 78s. Like the Larrikin album above, this features a lot of spoken word reminiscences from Dawson, alternating spoken introductions with songs; the first half of the collection first came out on LP in 1961 as Bushranger Ballads And Australian Outback Songs, and was a set of "bushranger ballads" (songs about Australia's oft-mythologized wild west bandits) while the second half was framed as "The Smoky Dawson Story."
Smoky Dawson "Bushranger Ballads And Australian Outback Songs" (Columbia Records, 1961) (LP)
Though technically a reissue of earlier 78rpm singles, we might as well as consider this an early "album" from Smoky Dawson... Besides: good luck tracking down either this LP or the 78s it was based on. These tracks have in turn been reissued on CD by the UK-based Jasmine Records label... (see above.) As with the later reissue, this includes several spoken-word narrations, as well as musical numbers.
Smoky Dawson "Back At The Ranch" (Columbia Records, 1973) (LP)
Smoky Dawson "Twenty Western Favourites" (Dyna House Records, 1976) (LP)
Smoky Dawson "Ya Darn Right It's Country" (RCA Victor, 19--?) (LP)
Smoky Dawson "I'll Paint You A Song" (Powderworks Records, 1984)
Smoky Dawson & Trevor Knight "High Country" (EMI Records, 1988)
(Produced by Clive Shakespeare & Doug Trevor)
Smoky Dawson "Smoky Dawson With The Howie Brothers" (Glenample Records, 19--?)
Smoky Dawson "Homestead Of My Dreams" (Origin Records, 2005) (LP)
(Produced by Lorenzo Toppano)
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1901 "A Tribute To Smoky Dawson" (Omega Records, 1981) (LP)
