Donnell Clyde "Spade" Cooley (December 17, 1910 – November 23, 1969) was an American Western swing musician, big band leader, actor, television personality and convicted murderer.

[2] Several thousand dancers would turn out on Saturday nights to swing and hop: "The hoards (sic) of people and jitterbuggers loved [Cooley]."

Cooley was in a so-called "battle of the bands," in July 1942,[5] with Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys at the Venice Pier Ballroom.

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.

[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 Ten singles including "Detour" and "You Can't Break My Heart".

[12] Cooley appeared in thirty-eight Western films, both in bit parts and as a stand-in and stuntman 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.

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.

Cooley reconstituted his band with former Bob Wills sidemen, including steel guitarist Noel Boggs and the guitar ensemble of Jimmy Wyble and Cameron Hill.

[20] KTLA eventually cancelled Cooley's program by 1956 and replaced it with a competing show brought over from KCOP, Cliffie Stone's Hometown Jamboree.

[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.

Cooley is a recurring character in James Ellroy's fiction, including in the story "Dick Contino's Blues", which appeared in issue No.

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".

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.

[34] In 2017, Tyler Mahan Coe's podcast Cocaine & Rhinestones profiles Spade Cooley in the third episode of season one.

[36] In September 2023, Winnipeg musician Boy Golden released a single titled "The King of Western Swing" covering Spade's story and crime.