Rusty draper biography graphic organizer

Rusty Draper was a singer, a showman and a star, a country- and pop-music workhorse who scored gold records and made dozens of albums during a career that spanned more than three decades and made him a familiar name in glitzy show-biz circles of the time.

But at home in little North Bend, where he and his wife lived for more than 30 years, Rusty Draper was just a quiet, modest resident who abhorred ostentatiousness and would just as soon shoot a round of golf and strum his guitar than sign autographs.

"I hate Los Angeles," Mr.

Draper told an interviewer in 1980. "In Los Angeles, every guy thinks he's a star. ... It's a town of phonies."

Mr. Draper, best known for 1950s and 1960s country hits "Gambler's Guitar," "Shifting Whispering Sands" and "Night Life," died of pneumonia Friday (March 28) at Overlake Hospital Medical Center in Bellevue after a 20-year battle with heart disease, strokes and most recently throat cancer, whic