Pat Hartman Spade Cooley Virtual Venice http://www.virtualvenice.info 2/5/2005b, 1940s
"Spade Cooley-In the early 1940s, the Venice Ballroom was turned into a country-western joint called the Foreman Phillips County Barn Dance. The new hybrid sound, combining traditional and city slicker music. would entertain as many as 4,000 munitions workers and other displaced rural folks until dawn. It was the site of a monumental Battle of the Bands between Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys, and Spade Cooley's outfit, which left Cooley holding the title "King of Western Swing." Cooley's story, like those of so many musicians associated with Venice, had a sad end. Suspecting his second wife of having an affair with Roy Rogers, he beat her to death (with their 14 year old daughter as unwilling witness) and died in prison less than a decade later."