Farewell, Eddy Dawson

Stereo Stories sends it condolences to friend and colleague Smokie Dawson on the death of his father Eddy this week. Eddy was not only a keen supporter of our shows, especially at Williamstown, but a central character in two stories that Smokie has narrated on stage with our band in recent times.

Eddy is front and centre at the start of the story about the Beatles’ song Here, There and Everywhere. Eddy was quite a Beatles fan, snaring a certain drummer’s attention at Essendon Airport in 1964…

…A youth leapt the security fence at the airport and, having jumped onto the side of the vehicle transporting Ringo Starr from the plane, thrust his arm through the open window and shook the hand of the startled Beatle, before being ushered away by the police. On the verge of turning 17, that youth will, only sixteen months later, become a father. And it is into a Beatles-loving home that I was born…

Ten or so years later father and son travel together doing a mail run in southern New South Wales. What do they listen to?

…In the summer holidays I accompanied Dad, assisting with the mail deliveries all the way up the unmade Mt Darragh Road to the foot of the Snowy Mountains. When setting off we would place my brand-new tape-player between us on the front seat and press ‘play’. And with that, the songs of Revolver, on my one and only cassette tape, would fill the taxi and accompany us for the entirety of our journey:  from Taxman, Eleanor Rigby, and Yellow Submarine, to Good Day Sunshine, Got To Get You Into My Life and Here, There and Everywhere …..to mention only half the tracks on Revolver. The variety never ceased to amaze me. By the end of that summer, I had memorized every name on every letterbox along the mail route, and I knew every lyric and musical note on that wonderful album…

In Smokie’s story based on That’s Amore, Smokie recalls his first visit to a barbershop, where the distracted barber – too busy singing the Dean Martin song – snips young Smokie’s ear.

….Half-singing, half-talking, the barber constantly turned away from me, engaging in conversation with the line of awaiting men. The sounds of the snipping scissors and whirring electric clippers were hypnotising, and I felt myself drifting off.

A sharp sting to my ear and a loud intake of breath from the barber jolted me back into consciousness. I tried to raise my hand to my ear but succeeded only in smearing the cape red.

Up until this moment, my dad had not been a participant in the theatre, hiding behind a copy of the Australasian Post magazine. But when he saw the blood dripping from my ear onto the pristine white cape and the hair-laden floor, he made the stage his own. Jumping to his feet, like a matador he stripped the cape from me, and hauled me down from my perch on the chair. There was anger in his eyes. “Look what you have done, you butcher. You almost cut off his ear. Too busy yapping and singing!”

The barber and the row of onlookers seated on the bench were dumbstruck…

…Vowing never again to darken the shop’s doorway, Dad quickly ushered me out and bundled me into the car…Half a century later the barber shop is still there, re-purposed into a modern hairdressing salon. My dad kept his promise never to return.

Smokie said on Facebook this week: It is with a profound sense of loss and sadness that I report the passing of my father, mentor, teacher, and friend. A true larrikin and ratbag, he is already greatly missed.

Eddy Dawson 1947 – 2025