Aus 65 - Peter Smith Dawson
A Collection of Aussie Radio Shows No 65 "Peter Smith Dawson" (31 January 1882 – 27 September 1961) was an Australian bass-baritone and songwriter. Dawson gained worldwide renown through song recitals and many best-selling recordings of operatic arias, oratorio solos and rousing ballads during a career spanning almost 60 years. Although Dawson's repertoire embraced a great deal of contemporary popular songs and light music, he possessed a remarkably fluent and technically adroit vocal technique which enabled him to excel in highly demanding classical pieces. His voice combined an attractive dark timbre with an ideal balance of diction and vocal placement. He also possessed a smooth legato, a strong but integrated 'attack' that eschewed intrusive aspirates, and a near-perfect ability to manage running passages and difficult musical ornaments such as roulades. These skills probably derived from his studies with Sir Charles Santley, a virtuoso English baritone of the Victorian era. If Dawson's interpretations were not profoundly penetrating, they were not shallow either; and in his chosen field of English concert pieces of the vigorous, manly, outdoors kind, he remains unequalled. The tremendously high technical finish of his Handelian singing sets an unmatched standard, too. In 1984, Dawson was chosen by the Guinness Book of Recorded Sound as one of the top 10 singers on disc of all time, listed alongside such luminaries as Elvis Presley and the great operatic tenor Enrico Caruso. In 2007, Peter Dawson's 1931 recording of the song Along the Road to Gundagai was added to the National Film and Sound Archive's Sounds of Australia registry. This program is presented by Peter Burgis who at the time of broadcast worked at the National Library in Canberra. Program aired on the ABC program “Sentimental Journey” January 30th 1982. Disclaimer: By uploading these files, I make no claim to ownership or copyright. These recordings have been acquired from publicly available sources on the Internet, and my goal has been to put together a collection of every available episode where possible. I will add to these collections if I discover new episodes or if any new episodes become available. Additionally, while I tried to put together a collection that contains the best version of each episode that I could, there may be better copies of some recordings available from collectors and dealers, and I encourage you to reach out to them if you are so inclined. If they are not in the public domain, notify me and they will be deleted.
This recording is part of the Old Time Radio collection.