was re-broadcast into New South Wales on 2CH as "Hill-billy Artists" by "Smoky" Dawson and His Boys. In 1941, he signed with Columbia Records, where he recorded his first commercial releases, including "I'm a Happy Go Lucky Cowhand" and "The Range in the Western Sky". He also toured around Australia. Dawson had used music as a way of comforting himself and during World War II he took this talent to boost the morale of others. In 1939 upon the outbreak of the war he had attempted to enlist, but was rejected on medical grounds for a "bumpy heart". In 1940, with Smoky Dawson's Five-Star Rangers, he would perform at soldier's socials. In 1941 when the Japanese forces approached Australia, he enlisted as a non-combatant nursing orderly and was commandeered by the First Australian Army Entertainment Unit. On 13 March 1944, while still in the army, he married Florence "Dot" Cheers (12 October 190627 October 2010), an elocution teacher – they had met nine years earlier when both worked in radio. Western Mails Louis Clark, described Dawson as an "Australian outback songster" and the unit as "an array of genius". Aside from music, Dawson would also perform at rodeos, circuses and country shows demonstrating his skill at knife-throwing using machetes, commando knives, tomahawks, or two-edged axes. By October 1949, Dawson had recorded about 60 tracks from his songbook of 280 tunes – all of them "have a cowboy setting—with a dash of romance". Dawson travelled around Australia for eight months a year while Dot remained behind as Auntie June on her own radio show for 3KZ. In March 1951 Dawson, as a cowboy entertainer, narrated a documentary film, directed by Rudall Hayward, on Australian rough riders at a Kyabram rodeo, which was to be broadcast on United States TV. Dawson sang a self-written song praising their skills and noted "there's nothing half-baked about Australian rodeos or the boys who ride in them. They're entitled to all the credit we can give them ... Rodeos and rough riders are just as much a part of our national heritage as symphonies and seascapes". In June that year Dawson and Dot travelled to the US where he played and recorded demos in Nashville. While in New Jersey, he took the role of Petruchio in a stage version of the musical, Kiss Me, Kate. His trip to the US was cut short after he was