Smoky Dawson

b. Herbert Henry Dawson, 19 March 1913, Collingwood, near Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, d. 13 February 2008, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Dawson's family relocated to Warrnambool when he was a baby and his mother died when he was five years old. A pioneer of Australian country music, his father was a music hall baritone, who had studied to be a chemist and then a doctor, before becoming an invalid as a result of injuries received at Gallipoli. In 1926, Dawson left school to work to help support the family and also began singing, yodelling and playing concertina and ha...