Spade Cooley

"Spade" Cooley was born Donnell Clyde Cooley on December 17, 1910 in Grand, Oklahoma. Being part Cherokee, Cooley was sent to the Chemawa Indian School in Salem, Oregon to be educated. In 1930, his family moved to California during the Dust Bowl.[2]

Cooley joined a big band led by Jimmy Wakely which played at the Venice Pier Ballroom in Venice, California, playing fiddle. Several thousand dancers would turn out on Saturday nights to swing and hop: "The hoards (sic) of people and jitterbuggers loved him." When Wakely got a movie contract at Universal Pictures, Cooley replaced him as bandleader.[3]

To capitalize on the pioneering success of the Bob Wills–Tommy Duncan pairing, Cooley hired vocalist Tex Williams, who was capable of the mellow deep baritone sound made popular by Duncan. Cooley's eighteen-month engagement at the Venice Pier Ballroom was record-breaking for the early half of the 1940s. His "Shame on You", released by Columbia's Okeh record label, was recorded in December 1944, and was No. 1 on the country charts for two months.[1] A Red Foley–Lawrence Welk collaboration issued by Decca (18698) was No. 4 to Cooley's No. 5 on Billboard's "Most Played Juke Box Folk Records" listing in September 1945.[4] 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.[5][6] "Shame on You" was the first in an unbroken string of six Top Ten singles including "Detour" and "You Can't Break My Heart".

Cooley appeared in thirty-eight Western films, both in bit parts and as a stand-in for cowboy actor Roy Rogers. Billed as Spade Cooley and His Western Dance Gang, he was featured in the soundie Take Me Back To Tulsa released July 31, 1944, along with Williams and Carolina Cotton.[7] Corrine, Corrina was released August 28, 1944 minus Cotton.[8] The film short Spade Cooley: King of Western Swing was filmed in May 1945 and released September 1, 1945.[9] It was followed by Melody Stampede released on November 8, 1945.[10] Spade Cooley & His Orchestra came out in 1949.[11] 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 of Jimmy Wyble and Cameron Hill. He also added full brass and reed sections to the band.

Beginning in June 1948, Cooley began hosting The Spade Cooley Show, a variety show on KTLA-TV in Los Angeles, broadcast from the Venice Pier Ballroom. The show won local Emmy awards in 1952 and 1953. Guests included Frankie Laine, Frank Sinatra and Dinah Shore.[12][13] The Spade Cooley Show was viewed coast-to-coast via the Paramount Television Network.[14] KTLA eventually cancelled Cooley's program by 1956 and replaced it with a competing show brought over from KCOP, Cliffie Stone's Hometown Jamboree.[15]

Cooley was in a so-called "battle of the bands," the date of which has not been documented, with Bob 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.[16] Some music aficionados insist Wills deserved the title "King of Western Swing", and Fort Worth's Milton Brown should be called "Father of Western Swing". But apparently the first documented use of Western swing for this style of music was in 1942 by Cooley's promoter at the time, Forman Phillips.[17] Cooley was honored by the installation of a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The foundation was laid on February 8, 1960.[18]

On August 5, 1968, the California State Adult Authority voted unanimously to parole him on February 22, 1970. Cooley had served nearly nine years of a life sentence, and was in poor health from heart trouble.[24] On November 23, 1969, he received a 72-hour furlough from the prison hospital unit at Vacaville to play a benefit concert for the Deputy Sheriffs Association of Alameda County at the Oakland Auditorium (now known as the Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center) in Oakland. During the intermission, after a standing ovation, Cooley suffered a fatal heart attack backstage. He is interred at Chapel of the Chimes cemetery in Hayward.[25]

John Gilmore has written an in-depth portrait of Cooley's life and death in Shame on You, a segment of Gilmore's non-fiction work, L.A. Despair: A Landscape of Crimes & Bad Times. Cooley is a recurring character in James Ellroy's fiction, including in the story "Dick Contino's Blues", which appeared in issue No. 46 of Granta magazine (Winter 1994) and was anthologized in Hollywood Nocturnes. Ellroy also features a fictionalized version of Cooley in Ellroy's novel L.A. Confidential.

Country historian Rich Kienzle, who specializes in the history of West Coast country music and western swing, profiled Cooley in his 2003 book Southwest Shuffle.

He is referenced in one of the Honeymooners episodes (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".

In the Jack Benny Program episode "Rochester Falls Asleep---Misses Show", Jack talks about how he's not afraid to play his violin in front of an audience, saying to Mary Livingstone, "I'm certainly no Heifetz, or Isaac Stern, or Mischa Elman." Guest star Bob Crosby then jokes, "You can throw Spade Cooley in there too."

The Longmire novel Junkyard Dogs, by Craig Johnson, has Walt 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 of 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 album I, 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 an episode of the Investigation Discovery series Tabloid.

Radio personality Phil Hendrie would occasionally refer to Spade Cooley in his comedy sketches.

Tyler Mahan Coe's podcast "Cocaine & Rhinestones" profiles Spade Cooley in the third episode of season one.[26]

Jake Brennan's podcast "Disgraceland" profiled Spade Cooley in the 12th episode of his second season.[27]

• Aragon Ballroom (Ocean Park)
• Spade Cooley's Western Swing Song Folio

• Logsdon, Guy. "The Cowboy's Bawdy Music." The Cowboy: Six-Shooters, Songs, and Sex (pp. 139–138) edited by Charles W. Harris and Buck Rainey. University of Oklahoma Press, 2001. ISBN 0-8061-1341-3
• Komorowski, Adam. Spade Cooley: Swingin' The Devil's Dream. (Proper PVCD 127, 2003) booklet.
• Whitburn, Joel. The Billboard Book of Top 40 Country Hits. Billboard Books, 2006. ISBN 0-8230-8291-1

• Spade Cooley at AllMusic
• Spade Cooley discography at Discogs
• Spade Cooley on IMDb
• Spade Cooley at Find a Grave