Tamam Shud, as well as leading Australian session musicians. In 1975, he moved briefly to Festival Records, where he worked with Billy Thorpe (including Thorpe's 1975 solo hit "It's Almost Summer"), before moving to CBS Records. He then produced a string of successful recordings, including hits for the expatriate New Zealand rock group Dragon and Melbourne band Australian Crawl, as well as reggae-rock group Billy T (which included former Daddy Cool guitarist Ross Hannaford), and hard rock group Rabbit, which was fronted by original AC/DC vocalist Dave Evans. During this period, Dawkins also produced several albums and hit singles by singer-songwriter Ross Ryan, including Ryan's signature hit "I Am Pegasus". Remarkably, Dawkins had to fight to get the song released as a single, over the vocal objections of Ryan's then manager, who loudly declared, "There is no way in the world that is going to be a hit!" In fact, the song reached No. 3 on the national chart. Dawkins also produced hit albums and singles for expatriate NZ band Mi-Sex, the Australian group Pseudo Echo, the hugely successful album-oriented rock group Air Supply, country music star Slim Dusty, singer-songwriter Russell Morris and rocker Billy Thorpe, amongst many others. (See discography below). In early 1976, at the urging of Ariel's Mike Rudd, Dawkins went to see the recently arrived NZ band Dragon at the Recovery Wine Bar in Camperdown, Sydney, and he was so impressed by their material (mostly written by keyboard player Paul Hewson) that he immediately signed them to a recording contract with CBS' subsidiary label, Portrait. Dawkins' productions for Dragon included the hit singles "This Time", "Are You Old Enough?" and "April Sun in Cuba", and the LPs Sunshine, Running Free and O Zambezi. His success led to a move to Los Angeles for a year in 1976. In 1978 he flew to a Holiday Inn club in Baltimore, Maryland, to see singer songwriter Tony Sciuto, and signed him on the spot to a CBS Record contract. (Island Nights EPIC 1980) 1980s, illness and onwards While working as A&R Manager at CBS Australia in 1980, Dawkins discovered the band Matt Finish and left CBS to start his first label, The Giant Recording Label. Subsequently, Giant released Matt Finish's enduring cult classics Short Note and Fade Away. Giant later signed Melbourne band Little Heroes. Dawkins produced Australian Crawl's album Sirocco, which went to No. 1 in Australia and