"RISE TO FAME!" Frank Coughlan, Emmaville Boy.
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So shouted the headline in the Examiner, October 1, 1936.
"No screen romance of a star's rise to fame, of which we have seen so many, could be more interesting than that of Frank Coughlan, the young Australian maestro who has brought the Trocadero Orchestra to a standard of overseas combinations which have achieved international fame," (states a Sydney paper) .. the Examiner stressing that it was not just their biased parochial opinion!.
"Frank was born in one of New South Wales' most northern towns, Emmaville and 50 of the residents who were visiting Sydney... a get-together was arranged one Sunday afternoon in the Botanical Gardens, when an illuminated address was presented to Frank upon behalf of the residents of Emmaville.
"Although Frank had achieved fame in England and on the continent, it was not until he returned to Australia that he received the full credit due to him from his fellow Australians.
"It will be appreciated that conducting the largest dance orchestra in Australia, totalling in all 21 performers, is no light task."
The Trocadero had opened in April 1936 and Coughlan's band played the latest styles in jazz and dance music.
On Saturday, October 26, 2019 the Glen Innes Town Hall will reverberate to the sounds of the "Winter Soul Collective" - James Haselwood's band of: George Chorley vocals and trumpet, Naomi Bain-Blair vocals, Jodie Bain vocals, Bekky Pascoe vocals, Luke Oppenheimer guitar, Ash Hall trumpet, Dave Brown trombone, Craig Campbell drums, Kent Eastwood piano, and James Haselwood bass for a night of nostalgic dancing after the Historical Society Fashion Parade.
Twelve "booths" of 12 to 16 will be treated to a marvellous spectacle of models gliding down the catwalk wearing a collection of 55 "oh so glamorous" cocktail and evening frocks, reminiscent of the heady days of the Trocadero in Sydney, that art deco dance and concert hall, known as the most glamorous dance palace in Sydney.
The parade will be followed by dinner - the menu chosen from former Glen Innes resident, Margaret Fulton's recipes and then the Winter Soul Collective will strike up for dancing.
