Of those gut calls, he once said: "You don’t do it that often in a career, but sometimes you just have to - like with Dragon; I heard one song after another, every one a potential hit."

Another of his success stories was the crucial second album from Australian Crawl, which built on their debut’s success rather than let the band become one-hit wonders.

Australian Crawl frontman, James Reyne, described Dawkins as "the perfect person" for the band at that time and someone who understood that "you have to understand the dynamic of the band and work with the dynamic of the band", to the point almost of being an amateur psychologist.

"It was fairly early in so-called career and that was important as it helps us pull ourselves together and we learnt a lot from being ourselves in the studio rather than dictating," Reyne said. "He was a song guy. He was an A&R (Artists and repertoire) man as well, so he understood songs and that's so important in a producer because he tried to get the best sound for the actual song."

Dawkins, who began his career in his native New Zealand as a drummer, not only worked for major labels in the UK, USA but ran several studios while also producing hits. Yet he retained a reputation as a humble man.