The Dark Side of the West Coast Swing Scene: Spade Cooley, Ella Mae Cooley, and a career that ended in murder

Spade Cooley was one of the most visible figures in California western swing.

He led a large orchestra, filled Southern California ballrooms, made hit records, and became an early Los Angeles television personality. His promotion also helped spread the name “western swing” during the 1940s. Oklahoma Historical Society

In 1961, a Kern County jury convicted him of first-degree murder in the death of his wife, Ella Mae Cooley.

The California Court of Appeal upheld the conviction the following year. Its opinion runs through a long record of threats, beatings, coercion, witnesses, medical evidence, and Ella Mae’s attempts to leave her husband. Justia Law

The history of Spade Cooley includes all of it.

California

Southern California developed one of the largest country music communities in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s.

Families from Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and other parts of the Southwest moved west during the Depression. Wartime defense work brought another surge of workers. Their music followed them into radio stations, dance halls, bars, ballrooms, and eventually television.

Historian Peter La Chapelle describes Southern California as home to a country music culture that grew from Dust Bowl migration into a major regional industry. Western swing flourished there during the war years, drawing on the same mixture of jazz, blues, fiddle music, Mexican American music, and popular song that had shaped the sound in Texas and Oklahoma. OUP Academic

Donnell Clyde Cooley arrived in California with his family around 1930.

Born in Grand, Oklahoma, in 1910, Cooley had played fiddle from childhood. He found work with western entertainers in California, appeared as a stand-in for Roy Rogers, and eventually established himself on the Southern California dance circuit. Oklahoma Historical Society

By the early 1940s, Spade Cooley had become a name.

King of Western Swing

Cooley built his reputation in the ballrooms.

His orchestra grew large and polished. The usual fiddles, guitars, and steel guitar were joined by horns and, at one point, a harp. Cooley cultivated a sound and appearance suited to Southern California, where western music operated alongside the movie business, big-band dance music, radio, and a rapidly growing entertainment industry. Oklahoma Historical Society

The crowds were substantial.

A 1946 Billboard profile reported that Cooley could draw 4,000 to 5,000 people at the Riverside Rancho in Los Angeles and had attracted 12,500 paying customers during one weekend at the Aragon Ballroom in Ocean Park. World Radio History

His records were selling, too.

“Shame on You,” recorded in December 1944 and released on Okeh, became one of the biggest country records of 1945. In June, Billboard listed it at number one on its Most Played Juke Box Folk Records chart. World Radio History

Cooley promoted himself as the “King of Western Swing.” His promoter, Foreman Phillips, was among the people who helped popularize “western swing” as a name for the music during the early 1940s. The term soon spread well beyond Cooley’s own band. Oklahoma Historical Society

Television made him more visible.

Cooley began broadcasting from the La Monica Ballroom at Santa Monica Pier in 1948. His Saturday-night television program went out live on KTLA, placing western music inside one of the country’s newest forms of mass entertainment. The program remained at the ballroom into the 1950s. Los Angeles Times

He had become a California celebrity.

Ella Mae Evans had been part of the band before any of that reached its height.

Ella Mae

Cooley hired Ella Mae Evans as a singer in 1943.

They married in 1945 after Cooley divorced his first wife. Their daughter, Melody, was born the following year. Justia Law

The abuse documented in People v. Cooley begins in 1946.

According to the appellate record, Ella Mae discovered Cooley with another woman and began packing to leave. Cooley told her he would find her and kill her if she went.

In 1950, relatives witnessed him twist her arm behind her back as she pleaded for help. The court record describes repeated beatings during the years that followed. On one occasion, she escaped his attempt to choke her by jumping from an automobile. Their daughter testified that she had seen her father beat her mother and threaten to kill her numerous times. A nurse and companion witnessed several assaults and once struck Cooley with a piece of wood to stop one. Justia Law

By early 1961, Ella Mae was telling people she feared for her life.

She told a doctor that she was afraid of her husband. She retained a divorce attorney and reported that the beatings were becoming worse. According to the attorney’s testimony, Ella Mae said Cooley had threatened to kill her if she left and threatened the children if she tried to take them with her. She wanted to leave the marriage and asked for no property. Justia Law

Cooley filed for divorce on March 21.

Two days later, Ella Mae signed deeds transferring jointly held property into his name. The appellate court recorded evidence that Cooley had beaten her severely before the documents were signed. Justia Law

During the final days of March, witnesses saw a black eye, bruises, abrasions, and other injuries. Ella Mae called her sister and said she needed somewhere to hide.

She never saw her sister again. Justia Law

April 3, 1961

Spade and Ella Mae Cooley were at their ranch near Willow Springs in the Antelope Valley on April 3.

Their fourteen-year-old daughter, Melody, was staying at a nearby house. Shortly after 6 p.m., Ella Mae telephoned and asked her to come home. Justia Law

The physical evidence later documented a prolonged assault.

Medical examination found extensive bruising and other injuries, damage to Ella Mae’s neck consistent with strangulation, and internal injuries. According to expert testimony cited by the Court of Appeal, force applied to her abdomen ruptured her abdominal aorta and caused the fatal hemorrhage. Justia Law

Melody witnessed part of the assault.

Her testimony described her father dragging Ella Mae from the shower by her hair, forcing Melody to watch, and stomping on her mother. She left the house hysterical and told a neighbor what she had seen. Justia Law

No ambulance was called for several hours.

A nurse arrived around 11 p.m. and found Ella Mae dead. She contacted the hospital and sheriff’s department. Justia Law

Cooley maintained that Ella Mae had suffered fatal injuries in a fall in the shower. He also argued that he had lost awareness of his actions after learning of an alleged affair.

Medical testimony, Melody’s eyewitness account, and the physical evidence contradicted his account. Justia Law

A Kern County jury convicted Spade Cooley of first-degree murder in August 1961.

He was sentenced to life imprisonment.

The California Court of Appeal affirmed the judgment on December 20, 1962. In reviewing the trial record, the court described the evidence supporting murder by torture as overwhelming. Justia Law

Vacaville

Cooley served his sentence at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville.

His music career had already been fading before his arrest. His television program had ended, and a planned Antelope Valley recreation development called Water Wonderland had consumed much of his money. Cooley’s surviving papers, now held by UCLA, document the proposed development along with his music, television, business interests, trial, and imprisonment. OAC

On August 5, 1969, Cooley learned that he had been granted parole, effective the following February.

KPIX filmed him at Vacaville that day.

Cooley acknowledged the reason he was there.

“I will never completely pay, in any way, for the taking of my wife’s life.”

He also spoke about his heart condition and said performing could cause problems for him. DIVA

He would perform once more.

November 23, 1969

Cooley received a 72-hour furlough from Vacaville in November.

On the afternoon of November 23, KPIX reporter Don Knapp interviewed him outside the Edgewater Hyatt House in Oakland. Cooley described the furlough as a kind of rebirth. He also told Knapp that he was a cardiac patient and hoped his heart would withstand the performance scheduled for that evening. DIVA

The concert took place at the Oakland Auditorium as a benefit for the Alameda County Deputy Sheriffs Association.

About 2,800 people attended.

Cooley played his fiddle and received a standing ovation. He walked backstage during intermission and collapsed from a heart attack.

He died there at age fifty-eight. Los Angeles Times

His parole was scheduled to begin in February.

Ella Mae Cooley

Spade Cooley remains part of western swing history.

His recordings document a distinctive West Coast version of the music. His orchestras brought western swing into some of Southern California’s largest ballrooms. “Shame on You” became a standard. His television work placed western music before a mass audience during the medium’s early years. His promotional machine helped establish the name by which the genre is still known. Oklahoma Historical Society

The court record preserves the rest of his history in considerable detail.

It records Ella Mae’s repeated attempts to get away. It records the people she told. It records the threats against her, the injuries witnesses saw, the divorce attorney she hired, the sister she called for help, and the violence that ended her life.

Her name was Ella Mae Cooley.

She was thirty-seven years old.

References

People v. Cooley, 211 Cal. App. 2d 173 (California Court of Appeal, Fifth District, 1962). The appellate opinion provides the most substantial primary account of the marriage, prior abuse, Ella Mae Cooley’s death, the evidence presented at trial, Cooley’s defense, his conviction, and the appeal. Justia Law

La Chapelle, Peter. Proud to Be an Okie: Cultural Politics, Country Music, and Migration to Southern California.University of California Press, 2007. University of California Press

Oklahoma Historical Society. “Cooley, Donnell Clyde.” The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. Oklahoma Historical Society

Oklahoma Historical Society. “Western Swing.” The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. Oklahoma Historical Society

UCLA Library Special Collections. Spade Cooley Papers, 1940–1970. Online Archive of California. OAC

The Billboard. “Most Played Juke Box Folk Records,” June 23, 1945; and profile of Spade Cooley, March 2, 1946. World Radio History

Bay Area Television Archive, San Francisco State University. “Spade Cooley Is Granted Parole,” KPIX-TV, August 5, 1969; and “Interview with Spade Cooley,” KPIX-TV, November 23, 1969. DIVA

Los Angeles Times. “Spade Cooley,” Hollywood Star Walk. Los Angeles Times