Stan Coster

Stan Coster
Bust of Stan Coster, Bicentennial Park, Tamworth, NSW.
Background information
Genres	Country
Occupation(s)	Singer-songwriter, musician, rough rider, construction worker, station hand
Instruments	Vocals, guitar
Years active	1956–1996
Labels	Gidgee Records
Associated acts	Slim Dusty

Stan Coster OAM (27 May 1930 – 25 March 1997) was an Australian country music singer-songwriter. His songs were regularly performed by Slim Dusty and other singers. He is the father of country music singer Tracy Coster.

Stan Coster was born at Casino on the north coast of New South Wales, Australia in 1930. One of seven children, each of whom were musically talented. He left school at the age of 14 and worked for a local butcher in Woolgoolga, NSW. By the age of 16, he was cutting sleepers for train tracks and at 18 years of age he went to work as a station hand before moving to Sydney and in 1948 moved to Cooma, New South Wales, to work on the Snowy Mountains Scheme.

In 1950, at age 20, Coster joined a travelling rodeo as a rough rider and in 1951 he married Dorothy Aileen Milto, with whom he had three children, including country music singer Tracy Coster.

In 1956, Coster began writing songs and met Slim Dusty in 1960 at Longreach, Queensland. Dusty recorded his first Coster song, “Return of the Stockman” in 1962. Dusty went on to record another 70 of Stan Coster tracks. In 1977, Coster won the Golden Guitar for APRA Song of the Year with his composition “Three Rivers Hotel”, recorded by Slim Dusty. While on the land Coster worked as a ringer, fencer, slaughterman, horse-breaker, kangaroo shooter, and shed hand and was able to draw these experiences into his bush ballads. Popular compositions such as his "Three Rivers Hotel", which tells the story of building a train line into a remote nickel mine, were based on his own life experiences and brought to popular attention through performances and recordings by Slim Dusty and other artists.