I hope I may be forgiven for believing for many years that Spade Cooley wasn't a real person, just a fictional celebrity that James Ellroy made up for his novels about the darker side of Los Angeles, probably to stand in for some real celebrity who didn't want the publicity of having murdered his own wife. Taking a look at his credits on the IMDb, I still think that a B Western called THE KID FROM GOWER GULCH is a little too on-the-nose to be a real Poverty Row title.
But it turns out that Spade Cooley was a real person, a considerable talent, and a leading player in Western Swing, a musical genre that in this period was the most popular musical genre in the United States. There's some good fiddling going on, some nice steel guitar work, and even fine yodeling.
But it turns out that Spade Cooley was a real person, a considerable talent, and a leading player in Western Swing, a musical genre that in this period was the most popular musical genre in the United States. There's some good fiddling going on, some nice steel guitar work, and even fine yodeling.