Spade Cooley | |
|---|---|
 Cooley in 1944 | |
| Born | Donnell Clyde Cooley (1910-12-17)December 17, 1910 |
| Died | November 23, 1969(1969-11-23) (aged 58) Oakland, California, U.S. |
| Other names | King of Western Swing |
| Criminal status | Paroled - died before grant of parole enacted |
| Conviction | First degree murder |
| Criminal penalty | Life imprisonment |
| Details | |
| Victims | Ella Mae Cooley (née Evans) |
| Date | April 3, 1961 |
| Musical career | |
| Genres | Western swing |
| Occupations | Big-band leader, actor, television personality |
| Instruments | Fiddle, vocals |
| Years active |
|
| Labels | Westernair,Columbia,RCA,Decca,OKeh |
Musical artist | |
Donnell Clyde "Spade" Cooley (December 17, 1910 – November 23, 1969) was an AmericanWestern swingmusician,big-band leader,actor, andtelevision personality. In 1961, he was convicted of the murder of his second wife, Ella Mae Evans.[1]
Donnell Clyde Cooley was born inGrand, Oklahoma.[2] Being partCherokee, he was sent to theChemawa Indian School inSalem, Oregon, in his youth. In 1930, during theDust Bowl, Cooley's family moved toCalifornia. There, he took the nickname "Spade" after he played apoker game and won three straightflush hands, all in spades.[3]
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Cooley joined abig band led byJimmy Wakely, who played at the Venice Pier Ballroom inVenice, California, playingfiddle.[2] Several thousand dancers would turn out on Saturday nights to swing and hop: "The hordes (sic) of people andjitterbuggers loved [Cooley]." When Wakely got a movie contract atUniversal Pictures, Cooley replaced him as bandleader.[4] To capitalize on the pioneering success of theBob Wills–Tommy Duncan pairing, Cooley hired vocalistTex Williams, who was capable of the mellow, deep baritone sound made popular by Duncan. Cooley's 18-month engagement at the Venice Pier Ballroom was record-breaking for the early half of the 1940s.
Cooley was in a so-called "battle of the bands" in July 1942,[5] withBob Wills and His Texas Playboys at the Venice Pier Ballroom. Afterward, Cooley claimed he won and began to promote himself as the King of Western Swing.[6] Despite Bob Wills playing the style of music before Cooley, the first documented use of "Western swing" for this style of music was in 1942 by Cooley's promoter at the time, Forman Phillips.[7][5]
Cooley wrote and recorded "Shame on You", released byOkeh Records; recorded in December 1944, it was number one on the country charts for two months,[1] whilecovers of the song byRed Foley withLawrence Welk, and byBill Boyd, opened at numbers three and four, respectively, onBillboard's Most Played Juke Box Folk Records chart (the chart whichevolved into today's Hot Country chart)[8] for 30 August 1945.[9] Soundies Distributing Corp. of America issued one of their "music video-like" film shorts of Cooley's band performing "Shame on You" in the fall of 1945.[10][11] "Shame on You" was the first in an unbroken string of six top-10 singles, including "Detour" and "You Can't Break My Heart".
Spade Cooley hung around Republic Pictures, ultimately sneaking onto a Gene Autry set. He was caught, but Autry noticed his resemblance to cowboy actorRoy Rogers and his talent for playing the fiddle, and introduced him to Rogers.[12] Cooley appeared in 38Western films, both in bit parts and as a stand-in and stuntman for Rogers.[2] In 1936, Rogers made Cooley the featured fiddle player and a vocalist in his group Riders of the Purple Sage. Billed as Spade Cooley and His Western Dance Gang, he was featured in the soundieTake Me Back To Tulsa released July 31, 1944, along with Williams and Carolina Cotton.[13]Corrine, Corrina was released August 28, 1944, minus Cotton.[14] The film shortSpade Cooley: King of Western Swing was filmed in May 1945 and released September 1, 1945.[15] It was followed byMelody Stampede released on November 8, 1945.[16]Spade Cooley & His Orchestra came out in 1949.[17] In 1950, Cooley had significant roles in several films.
In the summer of 1946, the Cooley band fragmented after the bandleader fired Williams, who had offers to record on his own. A number of key sidemen, including guitarist Johnny Weis, left with Williams, who formed the Western Caravan, which incorporated a sound similar to Cooley's. Williams had his hit recording of "Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette)" in 1948. Cooley reconstituted his band with former Bob Wills sidemen, including steel guitarist Noel Boggs and the guitar ensemble ofJimmy Wyble and Cameron Hill. He also added full brass and reed sections to the band.
Beginning in June 1948, Cooley began hostingThe Spade Cooley Show, a variety show onKTLA-TV inLos Angeles, broadcast from the Santa Monica Ballroom on the pier.[2] The show won localEmmy Awards in 1952 and 1953. Guests includedFrankie Laine,Frank Sinatra, andDinah Shore.[18][19]The Spade Cooley Show was viewed coast-to-coast via theParamount Television Network.[20] KTLA eventually cancelled Cooley's program by 1956 and replaced it with a competing show brought over fromKCOP,Cliffie Stone's Hometown Jamboree.[21]
In 1960, Cooley announced his retirement from music and moved to his ranch inMojave, to spend more time with his family.[5] He was honored by the installation of a star on theHollywood Walk of Fame. The foundation was laid on February 8, 1960.[22]
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Cooley's second wife, Ella Mae Cooley (née Evans), had been a singer in his band before they married in 1945; he was 34, and she was 21. During their marriage, Cooley suspected her of repeatedly being unfaithful. Conversely, Ella Mae suspected Cooley of infidelity. In 1946, Ella Mae was certain of Spade's infidelity and began packing to leave. Cooley told his wife that if she ever did leave him, he would find her and kill her.[5]
After his retirement from music in 1960, Cooley's drinking became more of a problem, and he was also mixing alcohol withthorazine. In February 1961, Ella Mae was hospitalized for a nervous breakdown. While there, she told nurses that the abuse from Cooley had escalated and that he had repeatedly threatened to murder her and their children.[5]
In March 1961, she told a friend she had had an affair with Roy Rogers in 1952 or 1953.[1][23] She soon asked Cooley – who had had many of his own affairs – for adivorce. On March 23, he filed for divorce, citing "incompatibility", and seeking custody of their three children, Melody, Donnell, Jr., and John.[24]
On April 3, Cooley murdered his wife at the couple's home nearWillow Springs.[25] Cooley's then-14-year-old daughter, Melody, recounted to the jury how she was forced by her father to watch in terror as he beat her mother's head against the floor, stomped on her stomach, then crushed a lit cigarette against her skin to see whether she was dead.[26] Cooley claimed his wife had been injured by falling in the shower.[5]
On April 26, 1961, Cooley wasindicted by aKern County grand jury for the murder. Cooley was defended by attorney P. Basil Lambros,[27] in what was the longest case in county history at the time and was convicted offirst-degree murder by a Kern County jury on August 21, 1961, after unexpectedly withdrawing aninsanity plea.[28] Facing a possible death sentence, Cooley was sentenced tolife in prison, eligible for parole after serving seven years, after the jury recommended mercy.[28]
Cooley had a parole hearing after serving eight years, in August 1969. His friends in Hollywood had been lobbyingGovernorRonald Reagan, who threw his support behind Cooley being released on parole. The state review board voted to grant Cooley a release on parole, effective February 1970.[29] Cooley died before his parole took effect.
Cooley had been awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame before the murder conviction, which has not been removed.[30]
On August 5, 1969, the California State Adult Authority voted unanimously toparole Cooley on February 22, 1970.[2] He had served less than nine years of a life sentence and was in poor health from heart trouble.[31]
On November 23, 1969, he received a 72-hour furlough from the prison hospital unit at Vacaville to play abenefit concert for theDeputy Sheriffs Association of Alameda County at the Oakland Auditorium (now known as theHenry J. Kaiser Convention Center) inOakland. During theintermission, after a standing ovation, Cooley suffered a fatal heart attack backstage.[2] He is interred atChapel of the Chimes cemetery inHayward.[22]
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John Gilmore wrote an in-depth portrait of Cooley's life and death inShame on You, a segment of Gilmore's 2005 bookL.A. Despair: A Landscape of Crimes and Bad Times.
Cooley is a recurring character inJames Ellroy's fiction, including in the story "Dick Contino's Blues", which appeared in issue number 46 ofGranta (Winter 1994), and was anthologized inHollywood Nocturnes. Ellroy also features a fictionalized version of Cooley in his 1990 novelL.A. Confidential.
Country historian Rich Kienzle, who specializes in the history of West Coast country music and Western swing, profiled Cooley in his 2003 bookSouthwest Shuffle.
He is referenced in one ofThe Honeymooners episodes, "My Aching Back" (1956) (from Art "Ed Norton" Carney to Jackie "Ralph Kramden" Gleason): "They wouldn't-a won [the National Raccoon Mambo Championship] except some guy slipped in a Spade Cooley record".[32]
In the 1956 episode "Rochester Falls Asleep, Misses Program" (The Jack Benny Program), Benny talks about how he is not afraid to play his violin in front of an audience, saying toMary Livingstone, "I'm certainly noHeifetz, orIsaac Stern, orMischa Elman." Guest-starBob Crosby then jokes, "You can throw Spade Cooley in there too."[33]
The Longmire novelJunkyard Dogs, byCraig Johnson, hasWalt Longmire and Deputy Vic entering a truck stop that Vic refers to as "the Disneyland Redneck Ride". Music playing when they enter is "scratching the paint off the inside of the place". Vic: "What the hell is that?" Walt: "That'd be 'Three Way Boogie', Spade Cooley" He then gives the salacious bits of the above history.
Ry Cooder's 2008 albumI, Flathead features a reference to Cooley on the track "Steel Guitar Heaven" ("There ain't no bosses up in heaven / I heard Spade Cooley didn't make the grade"), as well as a track named "Spayed Kooley", the name of the singer's dog.
In 2015, the Ella Mae Evans murder was profiled in the episode "Fame and Misfortune" of theInvestigation Discovery seriesTabloid.[34]
In 2017, Tyler Mahan Coe's podcastCocaine & Rhinestones profiles Spade Cooley in the third episode of season one.[35]
In 2018, Jake Brennan's podcastDisgraceland profiled Spade Cooley in the 12th episode of the season.[36]
In September 2023, Winnipeg musician Boy Golden released a single titled "The King of Western Swing" covering Spade's story and crime.[37]
| Selected Singles Discography | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Date | Title | Label | |
| 1942 | "Tell Me Why" [Cal Shrum] | Westernair 801 | |
| 05/03/46 | "Oklahoma Stomp" | Columbia 37237 | |
| 05/03/46 | "Steel Guitar Rag" | Columbia 38054 | |
| 06/06/46 | "Spadella" | Columbia 37585 | |
| 06/06/46 | "Swingin' the Devil's Dream" | Columbia 20571 | |
| 01/31/47 | "Minuet in Swing" | RCA 20-2181 | |
| 04/25/47 | "All Aboard for Oklahoma" | RCA 20-2552 | |
| 05/09/47 | "You Can't Take Texas out of Me" | RCA 20-3547 | |
| 11/17/47 | "Spanish Fandango" | RCA 20-2668 | |
| 03/30/49 | "Arizona Waltz" | RCA 20-3496 | |
| 04/11/50 | "Hillbilly Fever" | RCA 21-0330 | |
| 03/09/51 | "Chew Tobacco Rag" | Decca 46310 | |
| 05/29/52 | "Carmen's Boogie" | Decca 28344 | |
| Top 40 Hits[38] | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Position | Title | Label |
| 1945 | 1 | "Shame On You" | OKeh 6731 |
| 8 | "A Pair of Broken Hearts" | " | |
| 4 | "I've Taken All I'm Gonna Take from You" | OKeh 6746 | |
| 1946 | 2 | "Detour" | Columbia 36935 |
| 3 | "You Can't Break My Heart" | " | |
| 1947 | 4 | "Crazy 'Cause I Love You" | Columbia 37058 |
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