#198: Night Life by Rusty Draper
City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CJAD
Peak Month: November 1963
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #5
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #57
YouTube: “Night Life”
Lyrics: “Night Life”
Farrell Haliday “Rusty” Draper was born in 1923 in Kirksville (MO). Nicknamed “Rusty” for his red hair, he began performing on his uncle’s radio show in Tulsa (OK) in the mid-1930s. Draper moved on to work at radio stations in Des Moines (IA) —sometimes filling in for sports announcer Ronald Reagan —and in Illinois before moving to San Francisco. He began to sing in local clubs, becoming resident singer at the Rumpus Room in San Francisco. By the early 1950s, he had begun appearing on national TV shows, including The Ed Sullivan Show and Ozark Jubilee.