J P McCall
Born: 31st January 1882, Adelaide, Australia
Died: 27th September 1961, Sydney, Australia
Nationality: Australian
Peter Smith Dawson was an Australian bass-baritone and songwriter in the 1920s and 1930s, when he was possibly the most popular singer of that era. He said that at the time the gramophone was "an instrument of torture", excruciating for the recording artist, who needed "lungs of leather" to make an impression on the wax cylinders, which captured nothing but the very loudest noises.
However, Dawson made his first recording in 1904, and continued to release songs for EMI and His Master's Voice (HMV) until 1958. In this time he performed classical tunes such as Tchaikovsky's "Don Juan Serenade" and popular songs like "Waltzing Matilda".
He was the subject of a biography, Peter Dawson: The World's Most Popular Baritone written by Peter Burgis and Russell Smith.
Read more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Dawson_(bass-baritone)
