Spade Cooley's Complete Columbia Recordings

Donnell Clyde ("Spade") Cooley (1910-69) remains one of the best known exponents of the Western swing genre, even though his greatest successes, both artistically and commercially, came early in his career and spanned only a few years.

Way back in the first few months of this blog I posted Cooley's sole Columbia LP, Sagebrush Swing, which captured some of his band's finest work during its 1944-46 peak. Recently reader dave_bruce asked me to repost those files. Instead, I decided to expand upon that old effort for two reasons - one, I couldn't find the originals, and two, Sagebrush Swing is not entirely characteristic of Cooley's Columbia output. 

So today I am presenting all the Cooley Columbias, 24 in all, from his first hit, "Shame on You," through to his departure for RCA Victor at the beginning of 1947. These are mainly collated from lossless needle-drops found on Internet Archive and refurbished by me. They include two recordings with Dinah Shore and one Columbia master only issued on V-Disc.

The Cooley Prehistory

Western swing is generally considered to be a branch of country music, but its name also conveys two other influences. First, it is "Western" because it was produced by musicians who lived in the West, primarily California, with the best of them also appearing in Western films. And it was "swing" because it reflected the swing music of the time. The great Western bands - Cooley's among them - played for dancers, just as the city swing bands did. Some people believe that Cooley's promoter popularized the term "Western swing."

The first, best and remarkably talented Cooley ensemble was an outgrowth of singer-actor Jimmy Wakely's band, which was resident at the Venice Pier near Los Angeles and popular with dancers. At some point in 1942, Jimmy wanted to add horns to his band, but the dance hall management said no. So Wakely left the band in the hands of fiddler Cooley, and went off to make cowboy films for Universal.

The band that appeared at Venice Pier featured many of the leading musicians who would record with Cooley, as shown in the 1942 photo above. Among them were vocalist Tex Williams, guitarist-vocalist Smokey Rogers, and accordionist Pedro De Paul. The lone woman in the band was vocalist Ella Mae Evans, whom Cooley would eventually marry, and would murder 20 years later.

The 1944-5 Recordings and Instant Success

By 1944, the band's local renown had led to a recording contract with Columbia Records, which initially released Cooley's 78s on its OKeh label. The bandleader's first session yielded his all-time greatest hit - "Shame on You," with a vocal from the resonant baritone of Tex Williams and harmony from Smokey Rogers.

Rogers, who already had a serviceable nickname, was identified on the label as "Oakie." It's not clear where the latter name came from; Rogers was from Tennessee. Later on, he would make records under the name Smokey (Buck) Rogers. Also odd is that Rogers recorded a competing version of "Shame on You" for Four Star.

The solos on the famous OKeh record are by the sterling steel guitarist Joaquin Murphey and the underrated guitarist Johnny Weis, a Charlie Christian disciple.

Joaquin Murphey and Johnny Weis

All Cooley's early records feature Tex Williams, who was heavily influenced by Bob Wills' singer Tommy Duncan. Their mellow style would in turn be reflected in such later artists as Ray Price and Johnny Cash. 

Cooley wrote or co-wrote most of the band's songs, including "Shame on You." He collaborated at times with Rogers, Weis and DePaul, as well as other writers. The songs generally concerned themselves with the standard country topics, as indicated by their titles - "Forgive Me One More Time," "I Guess I've Been Dreaming Again," "I've Taken All I'm Gonna Take from You," "A Pair of Broken Hearts," "Troubled Over You," "You'll Rue the Day," and so on.

The band's only unissued side from this period was the war-themed "Hari Kari," a jaunty number that invited the then-foe Japanese to disembowel themselves. Both the subject and the presentation are tasteless and the song would not be issued to the public, mostly because it was recorded just a few weeks before V-J Day. It was, however, dispatched to the troops via V-Disc 841, and I've included it in the collection. The band's only other V-Disc was a reissue of its "Three Way Boogie," discussed below.

Another Hit and a Session with Dinah

Cooley's second hit was a cover version of "Detour," written by steel guitarist Paul Westmoreland and recorded with vocalist Jimmy Walker in early December 1945. (I suspect that the title was inspired by that year's film noir of the same name.) Within a month, Cooley was in Columbia's KNX Hollywood studios for a remake. The song perfectly suited Williams, backed on vocals by Rogers and bassist Deuce Spriggins. (Spriggins was another fellow who had many names - the label calls him "Arkie.")

KNX

Cooley's next session was with Dinah Shore, then at the height of her popularity. Shore was versatile, so Columbia had her cover everything from blues to Betty Hutton songs. Here she takes on Cooley's "Heartaches, Sadness and Tears" and Irving Berlin's "Doin' What Comes Natur'lly," from the then current show Annie Get Your Gun. Dinah, as was her habit, charmed her way through both numbers, but they would have been better left to Tex Williams or Ethel Merman. respectively.

Dinah made your worries melt away

Finally, Some Hot Instrumentals

When Cooley's usual aggregation entered the studio on May 3, 1946, they had not yet recorded an instrumental, even though such numbers surely would have been a mainstay of their band book. So, after dispatching the Tex Williams vocal "I Can't Help the Way You Feel," the group launched into four instrumental sides that would eventually find their way onto the Sagebrush Swing album. That 10-incher contained only one vocal, Spade's big hit "Shame on You."

The first instrumental to be recorded was "Three Way Boogie," in which the guitars, accordion and fiddles display section writing similar to the way trumpets, saxes and trombones were deployed in a conventional swing band. This propulsive piece - one of the best records of the swing era - was co-written by Weis, Murphey and accordionist George Bamby (spelled Bamley on the label and Barmby in the discography).

The other instrumentals are as enjoyable - "Oklahoma Stomp," "Cow Bell Polka" and "Steel Guitar Rag."

Pedro DePaul

Cooley's next Columbia session was in June 1946, split between Williams vocals and instrumentals, including the superb "Spadella" and "Swingin' the Devil's Dream." The latter was the band's exciting take on a traditional tune, here attributed to Cooley and Pedro DePaul.

That was the end of the Columbia contract and Cooley's greatest period. By the beginning of 1947, the bandleader had left Columbia for RCA Victor, most of the musicians had departed to form Tex Williams' Western Caravan, and one of the great Western swing bands was no more.

As Cooley had done, Tex and his crew met with immediate success in the recording studio. In March 1947, the band recorded Merle Travis' "Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette)," which became a massive country hit for Capitol. Playing on the record were many of the former Cooley musicians - Johnny Weis, Smokey Rogers, Deuce Spriggins and Pedro DePaul among them.

Cooley, Williams et al on Screen

Cooley, Williams and several of the other musicians may have spent as much time making movies as records. Their output included both Soundies and even more frequently, appearances and even lead roles in the inexpensive Westerns that were so much a part of big-screen fare back then.

Cooley himself had appeared on film as far back as 1938 as a member of Walt Shrum and His Colorado Hillbillies. His own band's first featured appearance seems to have been in the Joe E. Brown-Judy Canova film Chatterbox in 1943. In 1944, Spade, Tex and the band were seen in the Soundie "Take Me Back to Tulsa," appropriating the Bob Wills hit. This clip features Murphey, DePaul and a terrific Weis solo; also, for some reason yodeler Carolina Cotton pretends to play bass throughout the piece.

More of Bob Wills' repertoire can be seen in an "Ida Red" clip, again with Murphey and Weis starring. Carolina Cotton provides a solo yodel, this time leaving the bass playing to Deuce Spriggins.

The Cooley contingent made a 10-minute short for Warner Bros. in 1945, "King of Western Swing," with featured vocals from Rogers, Spriggins, Williams, and another Carolina Cotton yodel. Also in 1945, Universal shorts presented Rogers singing "My Chickashay Gal" (which he later recorded for Capitol) and the unknown Patricia McMahon doing Tex's specialty "Shame on You" with the Cooley band.

Finally, I'd recommend a version of "Miss Molly" from the 1945 Three Stooges feature, Rockin' in the Rockies. This has Tex, Oakie, Arkie, Weis, DePaul and even harpist Spike Featherstone, who appeared on several Cooley records about this time, all in prime form.

I mentioned that Western swing musicians found a natural home in the Western programmers of the time. Tex Williams had his own series for Universal, featuring Smokey Rogers and Deuce Spriggins.

Carolina Cotton and Deuce Spriggins

Meanwhile, Spriggins (often spelled Spriggens by the studios) was teamed with Carolina Cotton for a number of film appearances.

Some of the musicians had active recording careers as leaders. Beside Williams with his many records for Capitol and other labels, Spriggins had a number of solo Capitol singles, and Smokey Rogers did fairly well with Four Star, Capitol, Coral and other companies, including this 1950 gem with Ann Jones.

The Later Years

Cooley had his own program on Los Angeles television from 1948-56. He made a large number of records for RCA, then moved on to Decca in 1951. He made his final LP for Raynote in 1959.

The sad story of Spade's later life is well known - convicted of murdering his wife Ella Mae in 1961, then dying of a heart attack backstage at a benefit concert in 1969, shortly before he was to be paroled.