Interview with Spade Cooley

KPIX-TV news footage from November 23, 1969 with reporter Don Knapp featuring scenes from an interview with musician Spade Cooley (1910-1969), outside the Oakland Auditorium in Oakland. Spade provides an account of how his nickname "Spade" was acquired after a poker game in Klamath Falls, OR and also explains why he's playing at a benefit concert for the Deputy Sheriff's Association of Alameda County. At the time Cooley was an inmate of the Vacaville prison hospital unit. He was convicted in 1961 for the first-degree murder of his second wife Ella Mae Cooley. Cooley was granted parole in August 1969, which was to take effect in February 1970 and spoke with Knaap while on a 72-hour furlough. Cooley goes onto point out that he's "a cardiac patient" and hasn't been able to play onstage for several years, as "I immediately have a little trouble but today I hope I make it." When Knaap asks how Cooley feels about being released on a 72-hour furlough, Cooley replies: "Well Don, this is almost like being born again. I'm almost 60 now and today is almost like ... the first day of the rest of my life." Note that following a standing ovation at the concert later that evening Cooley died of a heart attack backstage, during the intermission. Opening graphic designed by Carrie Hawks.

Thanks to Don Knaap and Jason Bezis for alerting us to the existence of this footage.

This 16mm reversal film print was scanned in 4K (4096 x 2970) using a Lasergraphics ScanStation film scanner, in May 2024