Donnell Clyde "Spade" Cooley (December 17, 1910 – November 23, 1969) was an American Western swingmusician, big band leader, actor, television personality and convicted murderer. In 1961 he was tried and convicted for the murder of his second wife, Ella Mae Evans.[1]
Cooley joined a big band led by Jimmy Wakely which played at the Venice Pier Ballroom in Venice, California, playing fiddle.[2] Several thousand dancers would turn out on Saturday nights to swing and hop: "The hoards (sic) of people and jitterbuggers loved [Cooley]." When Wakely got a movie contract at Universal Pictures, Cooley replaced him as bandleader.[4] 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.
Cooley wrote and recorded "Shame on You", released by Okeh Records; recorded in December 1944, it was No. 1 on the country charts for two months,[1] while covers of the song by Red Foley with Lawrence Welk, and by Bill Boyd, opened at No. 3 and No. 4 (respectively) on Billboard's "Most Played Juke Box Folk Records" chart (the chart which evolved into today's Hot Country chart)[5] for 30 August 1945.[6] 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.[7][8] "Shame on You" was the first in an unbroken string of six Top Ten 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 Roy Rogers and his talent for playing the fiddle and introduced him to Rogers.[9] Cooley appeared in thirty-eight Western films, both in bit parts and as a stand-in and stuntman for cowboy actor Roy 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 soundie Take Me Back To Tulsa released July 31, 1944, along with Williams and Carolina Cotton.[10]Corrine, Corrina was released August 28, 1944 minus Cotton.[11] The film short Spade Cooley: King of Western Swing was filmed in May 1945 and released September 1, 1945.[12] It was followed by Melody Stampede released on November 8, 1945.[13]Spade Cooley & His Orchestra came out in 1949.[14] 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.
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.[19] 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".[citation needed] 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.[20] Cooley was honored by the installation of a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The foundation was laid on February 8, 1960.[21]
Personal life
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (February 2024)
Murder of Ella Mae Evans
Cooley's second wife, Ella Mae Cooley (née Evans), had been a singer in his band before they married in 1945; he was 34, she was 21. During their marriage, Cooley suspected Ella Mae of repeatedly being unfaithful. In March 1961, she told a friend she had had an affair with Roy Rogers in 1952 or 1953.[1][22] She soon asked Cooley - who had had many of his own affairs - for a divorce. On March 23, he filed for divorce, citing "incompatibility" and seeking custody of their three children, Melody, Donnell Jr. and John.[23]
On April 26, 1961, Cooley was indicted by a Kern County grand jury for the murder of his wife on April 3 at the couple's home near Willow Springs.[24] 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.[25] Cooley claimed his wife had been injured by falling in the shower.
Cooley was defended by attorney P. Basil Lambros,[26] in what was the longest case in county history at the time, and was convicted of first-degree murder by a Kern County jury on August 21, 1961, after unexpectedly withdrawing an insanity plea.[27] Facing a possible death sentence, Cooley was sentenced to life in prison, eligible for parole after serving seven years.[27]
Cooley had a parole hearing after serving eight years, in August 1969. His friends in Hollywood had been lobbying GovernorRonald 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.[28] 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.[29]
Death
On August 5, 1968, the California State Adult Authority voted unanimously to parole 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.[30]
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 his 1990 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, "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".[citation needed]
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 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 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 the episode "Fame and Misfortune" of the Investigation Discovery series Tabloid.[32]
In 2017, Tyler Mahan Coe's podcast "Cocaine & Rhinestones" profiles Spade Cooley in the third episode of season one.[33]
In 2018, Jake Brennan's podcast "Disgraceland" profiled Spade Cooley in the 12th episode of the season.[34]
In September 2023, Winnipeg musician Boy Golden released a single titled "The King of Western Swing" covering Spade's story and crime.[35]
^Jacobson, Laurie (2003). Dishing Hollywood: The Real Scoop on Tinseltown's Most Notorious Scandals. Nashville, Tennessee: Cumberland House. pp. 15–16. ISBN978-1-58182-370-7.
^The Soundies Distributing Corporation of America: a history and filmography of their "jukebox" musical films of the 1940s. Terenzio, MacGillivary, Okuda. 1954. page 129. ISBN0-89950-578-3
^The Soundies Distributing Corporation of America: a history and filmography of their "jukebox" musical films of the 1940s. Terenzio, MacGillivary, Okuda. 1954. p. 131. ISBN0-89950-578-3
^Whitburn, The Billboard Book of Top 40 Country Hits, p. 89.
References
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. ISBN0-8061-1341-3
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. ISBN0-8230-8291-1
