Spade Cooley was a spent force when he and eleven musicians recorded Fidoodlin’ for tiny Raynote Records in 1959. It was a contrast from the mid-1940s, when he and his musicians developed a uniquely Hollywood style of western swing. Tightly arranged, it mixed gut-level electric guitar and steel guitar with unison fiddles, audacious classical harp and Tex Williams’ slick baritone. Even with a few nationwide hits, Cooley remained a west coast phenomenon. The further east he toured, the smaller the crowds.
Things turned upside-down in 1946. When Cooley fired Williams, many core sidemen, sick of the boss’s violent, alcoholic mood swings, carried the original Cooley sound over to Williams’ Western Caravan. Cooley returned in 1947 with a syrupy pop orchestra, its mediocrity rivaling Lawrence Welk’s. While Cooley and band found regional stardom hosting the Hoffman Hayride, a top-rated local TV variety show, their RCA and Decca recordings tanked. By 1955 western swing’s popularity was moribund, yet Cooley, despite worsening heart trouble, persevered.
The fourteen brief instrumentals on Fidoodlin’ revisited Cooley’s mid-’40s sound, a style that by 1959 many associated with Williams more than its creator. Steel guitar virtuoso Joaquin Murphey, a member of the mid-’40s band, returned. For the album, Cooley reinstated the harp (despite annotator Joseph Laredo’s bizarre claim that no harp appears). As in 1945, Cooley’s unison fiddle section defined the melody. Still, with over twenty years in the business, he surely realized this album was empty nostalgia in a fading market.
Two years later, Cooley made worldwide headlines with his 1961 conviction for fatally beating wife Ella May (who once sang in his band) in a drunken rage at their home. After eight years in Vacaville, he was awaiting parole when furloughed to perform at a 1969 sheriff’s benefit concert. He dropped dead after his performance, a swan song far more dramatic than even his best music.