Spade Cooley's western swing band: TOPEKA POLKA

[loriharplizotte]

Love the swing king's sound. Thats too bad about his personal life. I had no idea since that was just before my time, born 1963:)

[Labaron26]

I just saw a Video of his on the TV channel of AMC......

[JessicaStanley13]

Spade crazy

[vonsmitty1313]

He was known as "the footstompin' king of western swing",and he stomped his wife to death with his cowboy boots,in front of their teenage daughter,no less...

[krzy18]

is that true? damn!

[ccaammiiittoo1]

Hopalong Cassidy in one of the photos?

[hillbillyboy77]

Joaquin Murphy was the first who started playing on "Bigsby" guitar. I was non-pedal triple-neck steel guitar. Joaquin was an icon for Speedy West so Speedy was the 2nd who got Bigsby guitar - pedal steel triple-neck. The 3rd Bigsby guitar was spanish solidbody for Joaquin's and Speedy's old friend Merle Travis. It was built in May,1948

[GodsFavoriteBassPlyr]

LOVE IT... Talk about pioneers~ This holds up to anything produced today for sure.

Brilliant music, great arrangement, excellent timing - What Western Swing ought to be.

[VAiraksinen]

The last photo of this 'video' - it's about Spade crying in court after hearing of his jail sentence after murdering his wife.

[csh6667]

and the slide one before the last: that's Roy Rogers. Spade did some doubling for Roy, because they looked so alike. Spade thought that Roy was having an affair with his wife -

one of the reasons that he killed his wife.

[98oilk]

TEX WILLIAMS and SMOKEY ROGERS were the famous members in Spade's band ...