August 28, 2025 • 20 mins
He was once the brightest star in western swing—an entertainer who leapt from dusty ballrooms to silver screens and finally into America’s living rooms through the glow of early television. His fiddle set dance floors on fire, his smile made him a household favorite, and his biggest hit carried a word that would come to define him: shame. But behind the lights and applause was a storm of paranoia, reckless ambition, and the slow unraveling of a man who could never outrun his demons. Fame faded, fortunes crumbled, and at home, rage replaced harmony. What followed was a crime so brutal it shocked the nation—and a final performance that ended not in applause, but in collapse.
If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, help is available.
Call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or visit www.thehotline.org for confidential support, 24/7.
Written by Jonny Hartwell
Voiced by Jonny Hartwell
Music Credit: Reel World Audio.
A iHeart Radio Production
Jonny’s Dead Air Podcast
Written, hosted, and produced by Jonny Hartwell.
A production of iHeartRadio Pittsburgh.
Thanks for listening—and for keeping the light on.
If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, help is available.
Call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or visit www.thehotline.org for confidential support, 24/7.
Written by Jonny Hartwell
Voiced by Jonny Hartwell
Music Credit: Reel World Audio.
A iHeart Radio Production
Jonny’s Dead Air Podcast
Written, hosted, and produced by Jonny Hartwell.
A production of iHeartRadio Pittsburgh.
Thanks for listening—and for keeping the light on.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
And welcome in. I'm Johnny Hartwell, and here's another Johnny's
Dead Air podcast story, a production of iHeartRadio. Shame. It
was his anthem and ironically his curse. He was Dawn, poor, hungry,
a fiddler who clawed his way from Oklahoma dust the
(00:20):
California lights, the crowds crowned him king. The song Shame
On You made him a household name. He sold millions
of records. He smiled through spotlights, he shook hands with heroes,
but Shame kept whispering that everyone could see through the varnish.
But lyrics can be a mirror, and mirrors, especially cracked ones,
don't reflect what you want to see. Because behind the smile,
(00:43):
with suspicion, behind the music, paranoia, rumors whispered about his wife.
Rage turned to violence, and one night it ended in horror.
This is script seven, Shame On You, The Rise and
Ruin of the King of Western Swing. Act one. The beginning,
(01:05):
the room smells of cigar smoke and floor polish. Two
producers sit stone face behind a desk. Dawn tucks the
fiddle under his chin, draws the bow, and the notes
echo sharp and clean. He plays as if the strings
are begging to be tamed. By the time he finishes,
the men are clapping despite themselves. He grins, but inside
(01:26):
a voice, a very paranoid voice, mutters, they're only clapping
for the fiddle, not you. Before he was king, before
he was even a name on a poster, he was
simply down. He was born in the dust bowl, raised
in a world where hunger was a constant guest in
survival meant improvising. Oklahoma gave him nothing but grit under
(01:48):
his fingernails and shame in his belly. California was his gamble.
He carried a battered fiddle with a suitcase, played wherever
someone would listen, union halls, barn dances, beer stained stages.
He learned to make the instrument laugh, cry, and plead.
The bow was his weapon, The fiddle was his sermon.
People started to notice he had something, not just a sound,
(02:09):
but a presence. The way he filled a room made
every man in it want to be him, every woman
want to know him. Would use the fiddle bow as
his conductor's baton, creating the magic Hollywood sniffed around b
Western's needed musical interludes, an easy charm, and Don had both.
He wore the hat, flashed the grin, and chucked the
(02:29):
lines and rode the horse on cue. He could be
the friend who wins the brawl without breaking us wet.
Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Duke Ellington was his peers, but
it was the Venice Peer Ballroom that was his home,
attracting thousands, salt in the air, boards that bounce underfoot,
a neon sign that sizzles when the miss comes in
(02:49):
off the water. Eight thousand people packed the venue. The
band hits a tune tight as a rope couple spin.
Don pulls the bow across the strings like he's roping
the room and pulling them closer. The crowd cheers. There
are palm trees outside and a pacific wind that sneaks
through the cracks of the doors. Inside the crowd is young,
sleepless wartime workers on night shifts, jitterbuggers and pairs. It's
(03:13):
California in the nineteen forties and swing is the hot
new thing. The bandleader's job is choreography without touching anyone.
He gestures and the horns answer. He nods, and the
rhythm section picks up the beat. He grins and everybody
takes the song home. He wants the crown, and he
wants the throne. He wants a title that sets him
on equal footing with a man from Texas who invented
(03:36):
a sound that mixed hot jazz with cowboys songs and
dancehall backbeats. He wants to be more than a fiddler
in someone else's band. He wants to own a word,
and that word is swing. There's a battle of the
bands on a summer night at the Venice Peer Ballroom.
Two outfits trading choruses until the dancers go breathless. Afterwards,
(03:56):
the California crowd can't stop talking and the promoter can't
stop operating. Posters sprout a new phrase, western Swing. Soon
our smiling bandleader is selling himself by another name, too,
the King of Western Swing. The records follow. In nineteen
forty five, a single flips across America, Shame on You.
(04:18):
It parts at number one and seems to live there,
the needle wearing a groove in the country's weekends, and
the B side hits two. The band is Everywhere, ballroom stands,
Soundie's in the movie houses. A name stenciled in brass
drums from Santa Monica to Bakersfield. Television comes calling. Feel
the heat of the tungsten lamps at the edge of
(04:39):
the dance floor where a TV crew has snake cables
under the chairs. A red light clicks on. The camera
opens its eye and gathers the room. You catch a
jitter of nerves in the bandleader's eyes, and then you
watch it vanish replaced by his broadcast smile. The bow lands.
The room becomes a transmission. Success is like a larger room,
(05:00):
and Los Angeles has one with a signal. The Variety
show carries his name, his grin, his band, his show
on KTLA live from the Peer Ballroom, a weekly procession
of dancers, celebrity drop ins, and a camera that loves
the fiddler swagger act too. The assent television magnifies the
(05:20):
crown the show books, Phil Frankie Lane, Diana Shore, Sinatra
drops by. Because television is the new main street and
a live band is the welcome sign. The bandleader takes
small roles in Western films, collect stories like belt buckles,
poses for photos with movie cowboys. His star is eventually
set in concrete along Hollywood Boulevard, a brass emblem for
(05:41):
tourists and an exclamation point for a kid from nowhere
who bet everything on a violin and a grin. But
a career's ascension is expensive. Bands are temperamental. There's money,
there's credit tempo, who gets the solo people leave? A
favorite singer peels off the front of his own outfit,
but the press keeps the word king in print anyway,
because he owns the crown. He buys land out in
(06:04):
the Mohave Desert and calls it a ranch. There's a
wife who wants sang in the band, kids who look
like the better chapters of a man's biography, and the
daily miracle of a mailbox that fills up with fan letters.
But who are these letters addressed to? Well, we know
his first name, we know his title, But the King
has a last name too. We'll get to that in
(06:28):
Act three. Next Act three. The name the nickname arrived
like a winning hand and then became the whole game.
One story says it came at a card game after
a long night dawn, riding a streak and grinning every
time the spade suit turned up like a friend. Another
(06:50):
story gives it to a promoter who needed a marquis
hook as sharp as a spur Spade short, memorable print. Ready.
What started it out as a joke turned into a
brand and dawn. He didn't just accept it, he built
a castle around it. No more don From now on,
It's Spade Coolie. Yeah, that's right, Spade Coolie, the King
(07:15):
of Western Swing. The hat brim dipped down just so,
the baton bow cut through the air. The arrangements flashed
and swerved. The name fit like a glove, sleek, cool,
black suit confidence. The Spade Coolie Show brought Western Swing
into living rooms across Los Angeles. Saturday nights became a ritual,
(07:36):
families gathering around the set to watch dancers twirl, the
orchestra swing, and Spade's fiddle laugh under the bright studio
lights for a moment. He wasn't just a regional star.
He was a television pioneer, one of the first musicians
to truly master the new medium. But like the Pacific tide,
what comes in must go out. In the late nineteen forties,
(07:58):
Spade Coolie wasn't just a case of Western Swing. He
was the king of television, and TV ruled America. But
the nineteen fifties brought a generational shift. A younger audience
was turning their ears to something faster, more raw, more rebellious,
rock and roll. Elvis shook his hips, Little Richard pounded
(08:19):
the keys, and suddenly Spade's Western Swing felt like yesterday's dance.
His television ratings faltered. What had once been must see
Saturday night entertainment was now fighting for scraps of attention,
bad bets. Spade tried to hold on, to invest the
money he'd earned, but the real estate boom that promised
fortunes turned sour. He bought land, sold land, speculated recklessly,
(08:43):
and lost. The money that once poured in like applause
began to drain away. Then came the bottle. The King
of Western Swing was never far from a drink, but
as the gigs thinned and the checks shrank, alcohol became
less of a companion and more of a crume. In
the late nineteen fifties, the King's throne was wobbling. Television
(09:05):
had moved on, radio had moved on, and America had
moved on. To the man who once embodied the pulse
of the ballroom was now a relic. His crown tarnished
his pride. Aching On top of that, his drinking was
getting out of control, and with shames circling closer than ever,
Spade coolly began to swing low. So when his wife
(09:29):
asked for a divorce, something snapped. At four the night
it happened. Next act, four the night had happened. This
is where the word shame stops being a chorus and
(09:51):
becomes the entire song. Friends pulled back, bandmates kept their
heads down. Then the rumor hit, the rumor that his
ella may had strayed, not just with anyone, but with
America's singing cowboy Roy Rogers. The truth was never proven,
no photos, no testimony, nothing but gossip. But for Dawn,
(10:12):
proof was unnecessary. The rumor alone was enough to rot
him from the inside. And that's how shame operates. It
turns guesses into verdicts. Verdicts turn into thoughts. Thoughts turned
into drinks. Drinks turn into accusations. Accusations turn into fights,
and the fights started to escalate. Words, then shoves, then
(10:33):
furniture suddenly began to be too light to stay where
they were put. Apologies always followed, then flowers, then a
quiet week or two, which bred hope, which made the
next eruption feel like betrayal. Finally, she's had enough, demands
a divorce. He pulls out the same old playbook, pleading, promises,
willing to change. Then came the night, The night. It
(10:58):
opens with the familiar her accusations, you're laughing at me,
you think I don't know, I know what you did,
and I know who with She denies, not carefully. She's
done this enough times to understand that neat sentences feed
the fire. She tries to deflect, offers dinner. He brushes
the plate aside, and now the room belongs to his voice.
(11:19):
She grabs the phone, desperate. His hand snaps the cord
from the wall, and the receiver swings. He slaps. She
staggers a half step and brings a hand to her cheek.
Tears cover the sting. Another slap harder. The corner of
the table catches her hip. As she stumbles, the chair falls,
clattering to the hardwood. The sound rings minutes, balloon ten,
(11:40):
maybe twenty. She shoves her She catches herself on the
edge of the sofa and pivots up, hands raised, not
to fight, just to ask Spade to stop. He hears
it as mockery. He hits again, and again. He kicks
the heel of his shoe thuds a low drum. She
curls around her own breath and tries to keep it
from leaving. The children are frozen in the rooms. When
peeking through the doorframe, eyes wide, taking in every blow,
(12:03):
the fourteen year old daughter pleads through tears, Daddy, please
please stop. Spade grabs his daughter's face like a vice, squeezing.
She can smell the alcohol on his hot breath. She
can see the spittle on the corners of his mouth.
This isn't her father, This is the volcanic rage of
an unrecognizable demon. She struggles against his strength. He spits,
(12:23):
where do you think you're going? You're going to watch this?
He drags Lma by the arm. The rug folds up
behind her. He throws her in the tub in the bathroom.
He's now talking, now, low, tight, instructive, as if it's
important that the room hear him articulate each score of
the ledger. He strikes with a belt, then the belt buckle,
then the back of the hand. His breath saws. He
(12:45):
turns to the girl. It's her fault, pointing at her mother.
The girl does not move. Moving might make him turn
on her. The beating resumes, but something in the room
has changed. The mercy you get from fatigue does not arrive.
Shame begins to eat its own tail. He strikes for
a long time, and so does the clock. Two hours
(13:05):
of relentless torture. Then there's the quiet that nobody wants
at some point, and who can say when it stops.
The sudden quiet is a false promise. He lights a cigarette,
the match head, flare's sulfur, the cherry blooming red in
the room's half dark. The girl's voice is a wire
(13:27):
pulled too tight. Daddy, Daddy, is she dead? He takes
a long drag and looks at Elime's chest. No movement
he can see, or maybe maybe he can't bear to
see it. He exhales, he spits. The smoke rises like
a shrug. She's faking. Just watch. He leans down and
(13:50):
presses the cigarette to her skin. A dreadful quiet sizzle,
a horrifying smell of burning flesh. She does not move.
She lies broken, lifeless on the floor. Blood seeps into
the cracks of the linoleum. The King of Western Swings
(14:11):
stands over his queen chest, heaving knuckles raw. The mask
is shattered, The performer is gone. What remains is a murderer. Soon,
red and blue lights will wash over the Mahave Ranch house.
Headlines will brand his name forever. He's no longer king,
(14:32):
He's now killer. At five, the verdict. Next, at five,
the verdict. Police flashbulbs the word king in block letters
beside the word murder. On the morning edition. The trial
(14:55):
proceeds like a parade. The daughter testified what she saw
and what she was for to see. He had explanations,
of course, every guilty man does, explanations like rickety bridges
that break the first time you try to cross. The
jury comes back with life life in prison. But in
(15:15):
prison he's dressed his shame and respectability. He led a band,
He practiced, a version of himself that could pass inspection,
contrition packaged as charm. According to Wikipedia, Cooley had a
parole hearing after serving eight years in August of nineteen
sixty nine. His friends in Hollywood had been lobbying Governor
(15:36):
Ronald Reagan, who threw his support behind Cooley being released
on parole. The State Review Board voted to grand cooley
release on parole effective February nineteen seventy yeah, after just
eight years This story could have ended right there, but
Karma had other plans. The epilogue and another twist in
(16:02):
this story. Next the epilogue, Karma for COOLi. So his
time in those cinderblock walls had an expiration date, just
eight years. Just eight years, they said. He paid for
his sins, and soon he would walk free, so the
(16:25):
paper said. But before freedom came a furlough. I chance
to perform again, to step onto the stage, not as
an inmate, but as Spade Cooley, the bandleader, fiddler, king
of Western Swing. The hall was packed, old fans, curious reporters,
even skeptics who just wanted to see what a fallen
king looked like after years behind bars. The orchestra struck
(16:48):
up the old songs, and for a little while the
years fell away. His hand moved the bow like a
man remembering his own language. The applause was genuine, almost forgiving.
Before intermission, Owls Spade got a standing ovation. Then came intermission.
The crowd buzzing programs folded in the fans. Cigarette smoke
coils in the air. In a side hallway away from
(17:11):
the stage lights, Spade sits down with a reporter from
a local paper, Pad pen and at first he's charming
his old self. He talks about the band, about second chances,
about how shame is just a word that a man
can change if given time. His eyes twinkle the way
they used to when he was selling a line to
a dancehall crowd. But then his voice hitches, just slightly.
(17:35):
At first, he clears his throat, tries again. The sentences
get shorter, the words come with effort. He loosens his tie.
The reporter notices sweat darkening his collar. Are you okay,
mister Cooley? Spade waves him off, just a little hot
in here. He forces a chuckle, but his hand drifts
to his chest, pressing as if trying to push the
(17:56):
ache back inside where no one can see. Mister Cooley,
how does it feel to be back on stage again
after all these years? Well, no, it feels like I
never left you. See, music, music doesn't age men do.
But a good fiddle tuna that will I'll live us all.
Do you think tonight is a kind of a redemption
for you? Spade trying to catch his breath. Redemption that's
(18:20):
kind of a church sounding word. Let's just call it
a second chance. Good Lord knows everybody deserves one. Your
most famous song, of course, is shame on you. Do
you ever think about how that title has followed you? Son?
Shames have been sitting at my table for years, eats
my food, drinks my whiskey, follows me to bed. Don't
let anyone tell you different. You can't outrun it. He
(18:40):
pulls a handkerchief from his pocket dabs his forehead. The
tremor in his hand betrays him. Are you okay, sir,
I'm fine. It's just these lights. It's just the heat.
You know. Funny thing about karma. You can play your hand,
but the dealer always wins. His breath, hitches his hand,
clenches his armrest, Sweat beads rolled down his cheek. The
rapporter calls for help, shoving the chair back, and the
(19:01):
King of Swing falls to the ground, dead of a
heart attack. That's right, he died, with the taste of
applause still fading in the air and the lock still
locked between him and the street. Was it karma that
struck him down in that backstage chair, payment long overdue
(19:24):
for the horror he unleashed, or was it something darker still?
The ghost of Lma reaching across the vale to stop
the man who ended her life. No doctor's report can
explain that moment the heart simply gave out, But for
those who knew the story, it felt less like a
(19:46):
coincidence and more like justice, finally keeping time. I hope
you enjoyed Scrip seven. Shame on you. The rise and
ruin of the King of Western Swing. This has been
Johnny's Dead Air podcast. I'm Johnny Heartwell, thank you so
much for listening.
And welcome in. I'm Johnny Hartwell, and here's another Johnny's
Dead Air podcast story, a production of iHeartRadio. Shame. It
was his anthem and ironically his curse. He was Dawn, poor, hungry,
a fiddler who clawed his way from Oklahoma dust the
(00:20):
California lights, the crowds crowned him king. The song Shame
On You made him a household name. He sold millions
of records. He smiled through spotlights, he shook hands with heroes,
but Shame kept whispering that everyone could see through the varnish.
But lyrics can be a mirror, and mirrors, especially cracked ones,
don't reflect what you want to see. Because behind the smile,
(00:43):
with suspicion, behind the music, paranoia, rumors whispered about his wife.
Rage turned to violence, and one night it ended in horror.
This is script seven, Shame On You, The Rise and
Ruin of the King of Western Swing. Act one. The beginning,
(01:05):
the room smells of cigar smoke and floor polish. Two
producers sit stone face behind a desk. Dawn tucks the
fiddle under his chin, draws the bow, and the notes
echo sharp and clean. He plays as if the strings
are begging to be tamed. By the time he finishes,
the men are clapping despite themselves. He grins, but inside
(01:26):
a voice, a very paranoid voice, mutters, they're only clapping
for the fiddle, not you. Before he was king, before
he was even a name on a poster, he was
simply down. He was born in the dust bowl, raised
in a world where hunger was a constant guest in
survival meant improvising. Oklahoma gave him nothing but grit under
(01:48):
his fingernails and shame in his belly. California was his gamble.
He carried a battered fiddle with a suitcase, played wherever
someone would listen, union halls, barn dances, beer stained stages.
He learned to make the instrument laugh, cry, and plead.
The bow was his weapon, The fiddle was his sermon.
People started to notice he had something, not just a sound,
(02:09):
but a presence. The way he filled a room made
every man in it want to be him, every woman
want to know him. Would use the fiddle bow as
his conductor's baton, creating the magic Hollywood sniffed around b
Western's needed musical interludes, an easy charm, and Don had both.
He wore the hat, flashed the grin, and chucked the
(02:29):
lines and rode the horse on cue. He could be
the friend who wins the brawl without breaking us wet.
Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Duke Ellington was his peers, but
it was the Venice Peer Ballroom that was his home,
attracting thousands, salt in the air, boards that bounce underfoot,
a neon sign that sizzles when the miss comes in
(02:49):
off the water. Eight thousand people packed the venue. The
band hits a tune tight as a rope couple spin.
Don pulls the bow across the strings like he's roping
the room and pulling them closer. The crowd cheers. There
are palm trees outside and a pacific wind that sneaks
through the cracks of the doors. Inside the crowd is young,
sleepless wartime workers on night shifts, jitterbuggers and pairs. It's
(03:13):
California in the nineteen forties and swing is the hot
new thing. The bandleader's job is choreography without touching anyone.
He gestures and the horns answer. He nods, and the
rhythm section picks up the beat. He grins and everybody
takes the song home. He wants the crown, and he
wants the throne. He wants a title that sets him
on equal footing with a man from Texas who invented
(03:36):
a sound that mixed hot jazz with cowboys songs and
dancehall backbeats. He wants to be more than a fiddler
in someone else's band. He wants to own a word,
and that word is swing. There's a battle of the
bands on a summer night at the Venice Peer Ballroom.
Two outfits trading choruses until the dancers go breathless. Afterwards,
(03:56):
the California crowd can't stop talking and the promoter can't
stop operating. Posters sprout a new phrase, western Swing. Soon
our smiling bandleader is selling himself by another name, too,
the King of Western Swing. The records follow. In nineteen
forty five, a single flips across America, Shame on You.
(04:18):
It parts at number one and seems to live there,
the needle wearing a groove in the country's weekends, and
the B side hits two. The band is Everywhere, ballroom stands,
Soundie's in the movie houses. A name stenciled in brass
drums from Santa Monica to Bakersfield. Television comes calling. Feel
the heat of the tungsten lamps at the edge of
(04:39):
the dance floor where a TV crew has snake cables
under the chairs. A red light clicks on. The camera
opens its eye and gathers the room. You catch a
jitter of nerves in the bandleader's eyes, and then you
watch it vanish replaced by his broadcast smile. The bow lands.
The room becomes a transmission. Success is like a larger room,
(05:00):
and Los Angeles has one with a signal. The Variety
show carries his name, his grin, his band, his show
on KTLA live from the Peer Ballroom, a weekly procession
of dancers, celebrity drop ins, and a camera that loves
the fiddler swagger act too. The assent television magnifies the
(05:20):
crown the show books, Phil Frankie Lane, Diana Shore, Sinatra
drops by. Because television is the new main street and
a live band is the welcome sign. The bandleader takes
small roles in Western films, collect stories like belt buckles,
poses for photos with movie cowboys. His star is eventually
set in concrete along Hollywood Boulevard, a brass emblem for
(05:41):
tourists and an exclamation point for a kid from nowhere
who bet everything on a violin and a grin. But
a career's ascension is expensive. Bands are temperamental. There's money,
there's credit tempo, who gets the solo people leave? A
favorite singer peels off the front of his own outfit,
but the press keeps the word king in print anyway,
because he owns the crown. He buys land out in
(06:04):
the Mohave Desert and calls it a ranch. There's a
wife who wants sang in the band, kids who look
like the better chapters of a man's biography, and the
daily miracle of a mailbox that fills up with fan letters.
But who are these letters addressed to? Well, we know
his first name, we know his title, But the King
has a last name too. We'll get to that in
(06:28):
Act three. Next Act three. The name the nickname arrived
like a winning hand and then became the whole game.
One story says it came at a card game after
a long night dawn, riding a streak and grinning every
time the spade suit turned up like a friend. Another
(06:50):
story gives it to a promoter who needed a marquis
hook as sharp as a spur Spade short, memorable print. Ready.
What started it out as a joke turned into a
brand and dawn. He didn't just accept it, he built
a castle around it. No more don From now on,
It's Spade Coolie. Yeah, that's right, Spade Coolie, the King
(07:15):
of Western Swing. The hat brim dipped down just so,
the baton bow cut through the air. The arrangements flashed
and swerved. The name fit like a glove, sleek, cool,
black suit confidence. The Spade Coolie Show brought Western Swing
into living rooms across Los Angeles. Saturday nights became a ritual,
(07:36):
families gathering around the set to watch dancers twirl, the
orchestra swing, and Spade's fiddle laugh under the bright studio
lights for a moment. He wasn't just a regional star.
He was a television pioneer, one of the first musicians
to truly master the new medium. But like the Pacific tide,
what comes in must go out. In the late nineteen forties,
(07:58):
Spade Coolie wasn't just a case of Western Swing. He
was the king of television, and TV ruled America. But
the nineteen fifties brought a generational shift. A younger audience
was turning their ears to something faster, more raw, more rebellious,
rock and roll. Elvis shook his hips, Little Richard pounded
(08:19):
the keys, and suddenly Spade's Western Swing felt like yesterday's dance.
His television ratings faltered. What had once been must see
Saturday night entertainment was now fighting for scraps of attention,
bad bets. Spade tried to hold on, to invest the
money he'd earned, but the real estate boom that promised
fortunes turned sour. He bought land, sold land, speculated recklessly,
(08:43):
and lost. The money that once poured in like applause
began to drain away. Then came the bottle. The King
of Western Swing was never far from a drink, but
as the gigs thinned and the checks shrank, alcohol became
less of a companion and more of a crume. In
the late nineteen fifties, the King's throne was wobbling. Television
(09:05):
had moved on, radio had moved on, and America had
moved on. To the man who once embodied the pulse
of the ballroom was now a relic. His crown tarnished
his pride. Aching On top of that, his drinking was
getting out of control, and with shames circling closer than ever,
Spade coolly began to swing low. So when his wife
(09:29):
asked for a divorce, something snapped. At four the night
it happened. Next act, four the night had happened. This
is where the word shame stops being a chorus and
(09:51):
becomes the entire song. Friends pulled back, bandmates kept their
heads down. Then the rumor hit, the rumor that his
ella may had strayed, not just with anyone, but with
America's singing cowboy Roy Rogers. The truth was never proven,
no photos, no testimony, nothing but gossip. But for Dawn,
(10:12):
proof was unnecessary. The rumor alone was enough to rot
him from the inside. And that's how shame operates. It
turns guesses into verdicts. Verdicts turn into thoughts. Thoughts turned
into drinks. Drinks turn into accusations. Accusations turn into fights,
and the fights started to escalate. Words, then shoves, then
(10:33):
furniture suddenly began to be too light to stay where
they were put. Apologies always followed, then flowers, then a
quiet week or two, which bred hope, which made the
next eruption feel like betrayal. Finally, she's had enough, demands
a divorce. He pulls out the same old playbook, pleading, promises,
willing to change. Then came the night, The night. It
(10:58):
opens with the familiar her accusations, you're laughing at me,
you think I don't know, I know what you did,
and I know who with She denies, not carefully. She's
done this enough times to understand that neat sentences feed
the fire. She tries to deflect, offers dinner. He brushes
the plate aside, and now the room belongs to his voice.
(11:19):
She grabs the phone, desperate. His hand snaps the cord
from the wall, and the receiver swings. He slaps. She
staggers a half step and brings a hand to her cheek.
Tears cover the sting. Another slap harder. The corner of
the table catches her hip. As she stumbles, the chair falls,
clattering to the hardwood. The sound rings minutes, balloon ten,
(11:40):
maybe twenty. She shoves her She catches herself on the
edge of the sofa and pivots up, hands raised, not
to fight, just to ask Spade to stop. He hears
it as mockery. He hits again, and again. He kicks
the heel of his shoe thuds a low drum. She
curls around her own breath and tries to keep it
from leaving. The children are frozen in the rooms. When
peeking through the doorframe, eyes wide, taking in every blow,
(12:03):
the fourteen year old daughter pleads through tears, Daddy, please
please stop. Spade grabs his daughter's face like a vice, squeezing.
She can smell the alcohol on his hot breath. She
can see the spittle on the corners of his mouth.
This isn't her father, This is the volcanic rage of
an unrecognizable demon. She struggles against his strength. He spits,
(12:23):
where do you think you're going? You're going to watch this?
He drags Lma by the arm. The rug folds up
behind her. He throws her in the tub in the bathroom.
He's now talking, now, low, tight, instructive, as if it's
important that the room hear him articulate each score of
the ledger. He strikes with a belt, then the belt buckle,
then the back of the hand. His breath saws. He
(12:45):
turns to the girl. It's her fault, pointing at her mother.
The girl does not move. Moving might make him turn
on her. The beating resumes, but something in the room
has changed. The mercy you get from fatigue does not arrive.
Shame begins to eat its own tail. He strikes for
a long time, and so does the clock. Two hours
(13:05):
of relentless torture. Then there's the quiet that nobody wants
at some point, and who can say when it stops.
The sudden quiet is a false promise. He lights a cigarette,
the match head, flare's sulfur, the cherry blooming red in
the room's half dark. The girl's voice is a wire
(13:27):
pulled too tight. Daddy, Daddy, is she dead? He takes
a long drag and looks at Elime's chest. No movement
he can see, or maybe maybe he can't bear to
see it. He exhales, he spits. The smoke rises like
a shrug. She's faking. Just watch. He leans down and
(13:50):
presses the cigarette to her skin. A dreadful quiet sizzle,
a horrifying smell of burning flesh. She does not move.
She lies broken, lifeless on the floor. Blood seeps into
the cracks of the linoleum. The King of Western Swings
(14:11):
stands over his queen chest, heaving knuckles raw. The mask
is shattered, The performer is gone. What remains is a murderer. Soon,
red and blue lights will wash over the Mahave Ranch house.
Headlines will brand his name forever. He's no longer king,
(14:32):
He's now killer. At five, the verdict. Next, at five,
the verdict. Police flashbulbs the word king in block letters
beside the word murder. On the morning edition. The trial
(14:55):
proceeds like a parade. The daughter testified what she saw
and what she was for to see. He had explanations,
of course, every guilty man does, explanations like rickety bridges
that break the first time you try to cross. The
jury comes back with life life in prison. But in
(15:15):
prison he's dressed his shame and respectability. He led a band,
He practiced, a version of himself that could pass inspection,
contrition packaged as charm. According to Wikipedia, Cooley had a
parole hearing after serving eight years in August of nineteen
sixty nine. His friends in Hollywood had been lobbying Governor
(15:36):
Ronald Reagan, who threw his support behind Cooley being released
on parole. The State Review Board voted to grand cooley
release on parole effective February nineteen seventy yeah, after just
eight years This story could have ended right there, but
Karma had other plans. The epilogue and another twist in
(16:02):
this story. Next the epilogue, Karma for COOLi. So his
time in those cinderblock walls had an expiration date, just
eight years. Just eight years, they said. He paid for
his sins, and soon he would walk free, so the
(16:25):
paper said. But before freedom came a furlough. I chance
to perform again, to step onto the stage, not as
an inmate, but as Spade Cooley, the bandleader, fiddler, king
of Western Swing. The hall was packed, old fans, curious reporters,
even skeptics who just wanted to see what a fallen
king looked like after years behind bars. The orchestra struck
(16:48):
up the old songs, and for a little while the
years fell away. His hand moved the bow like a
man remembering his own language. The applause was genuine, almost forgiving.
Before intermission, Owls Spade got a standing ovation. Then came intermission.
The crowd buzzing programs folded in the fans. Cigarette smoke
coils in the air. In a side hallway away from
(17:11):
the stage lights, Spade sits down with a reporter from
a local paper, Pad pen and at first he's charming
his old self. He talks about the band, about second chances,
about how shame is just a word that a man
can change if given time. His eyes twinkle the way
they used to when he was selling a line to
a dancehall crowd. But then his voice hitches, just slightly.
(17:35):
At first, he clears his throat, tries again. The sentences
get shorter, the words come with effort. He loosens his tie.
The reporter notices sweat darkening his collar. Are you okay,
mister Cooley? Spade waves him off, just a little hot
in here. He forces a chuckle, but his hand drifts
to his chest, pressing as if trying to push the
(17:56):
ache back inside where no one can see. Mister Cooley,
how does it feel to be back on stage again
after all these years? Well, no, it feels like I
never left you. See, music, music doesn't age men do.
But a good fiddle tuna that will I'll live us all.
Do you think tonight is a kind of a redemption
for you? Spade trying to catch his breath. Redemption that's
(18:20):
kind of a church sounding word. Let's just call it
a second chance. Good Lord knows everybody deserves one. Your
most famous song, of course, is shame on you. Do
you ever think about how that title has followed you? Son?
Shames have been sitting at my table for years, eats
my food, drinks my whiskey, follows me to bed. Don't
let anyone tell you different. You can't outrun it. He
(18:40):
pulls a handkerchief from his pocket dabs his forehead. The
tremor in his hand betrays him. Are you okay, sir,
I'm fine. It's just these lights. It's just the heat.
You know. Funny thing about karma. You can play your hand,
but the dealer always wins. His breath, hitches his hand,
clenches his armrest, Sweat beads rolled down his cheek. The
rapporter calls for help, shoving the chair back, and the
(19:01):
King of Swing falls to the ground, dead of a
heart attack. That's right, he died, with the taste of
applause still fading in the air and the lock still
locked between him and the street. Was it karma that
struck him down in that backstage chair, payment long overdue
(19:24):
for the horror he unleashed, or was it something darker still?
The ghost of Lma reaching across the vale to stop
the man who ended her life. No doctor's report can
explain that moment the heart simply gave out, But for
those who knew the story, it felt less like a
(19:46):
coincidence and more like justice, finally keeping time. I hope
you enjoyed Scrip seven. Shame on you. The rise and
ruin of the King of Western Swing. This has been
Johnny's Dead Air podcast. I'm Johnny Heartwell, thank you so
much for listening.
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