Known for his homespun advice and storytelling, radio host Galen Drake was a consistent audience draw on local and national airwaves during the 1940s and 1950s. Once dubbed "The Most Convincing Microphone Voice" by Radio Life magazine, Drake pitched thousands of products over radio during the course of his career and hosted various programs, all of which revolved around his just-plain-folk commentary and philosophy. Drake reached the pinnacle of his radio career during the 1950s, when he simultaneously hosted a weekly variety show from New York City over the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) and two daily programs over radio station WCBS in New York.

     Although Drake never acquired the popularity of fellow CBS star Arthur Godfrey, the two shared a somewhat similar style. Many listeners appreciated their advertisements because they seemed genuine, not overly fawning toward the products. Drake, like Godfrey, delivered his product appeals in a conversational, spontaneous manner, which he altered depending on his mood and experiences with the products; he rarely scripted his pitches, using only a few hastily sketched notes.

     When Drake wasn't selling products, he hosted radio shows that were essentially forums for his advice, statements of philosophy, and stories; the conversational style that made his product pitches so convincing also characterized his performance on radio shows. Drake liked to sound spontaneous, a quality he achieved by striding into the radio studio less than five minutes before airtime, clutching only the sparsest of notes. Although he planned topics for discussion, he claimed to have no set outline to address them. "How am I going to know what I'll say until I start talking?" he once exclaimed. "Do you draw up diagrams of your conversation when you go visiting friends?"

     The raconteur's "conversations" with his radio audience could cover multiple subjects in the course of one 45-minute program. For example, on one broadcast in 1947 he dealt with night vision, the effect of emotions on driving, mountain climbing, inventors, and juvenile delinquency. He constantly peppered his shows with commonsense observations: "There are two times to keep your mouth shut: when you're swimmin' and when you're angry" or "What a man must do he can do. When he says he cannot, he means he will not."

     Drake told interviewers that he based his advice and truisms on the words of philosophers and psychiatrists he studied as well as on the homegrown ideals that his father (who was in the furniture business) articulated. Drake's knack for delivering his advice and truisms grew from conversing, while still young, with many adults (three half siblings were grown at the time of Drake's birth) as well as from his acting, which began at Long Beach (California) Polytechnic High School during the 1920s.

     Drake's high school acting coincided with his employment at radio station KFOX in Long Beach, where he sang and acted in radio plays. After graduating from high school in 1926, he remained at KFOX and also directed plays at the Long Beach Community Playhouse. In 1940 he debuted on the airwaves of CBS-affiliated KSFO in San Francisco, California, and two years later he landed at the CBS-owned KNX in Los Angeles, California. Drake's association with CBS radio would be his avenue to national fame.

     Over KSFO and KNX, Drake hosted the Sunrise Salute and Housewives Protective League programs, which were created by Fletcher Wiley and produced locally at CBS radio stations around the country. The programs touted products approved by a panel of housewives and featured advice and stories for their female audience. Drake perfected his intimate radio delivery (which, however, some critics derided as smug and arrogant) as a voice of the Housewives Protective League (HPL). It was through his product marketing on the Fletcher Wiley programs that he came to define himself as a product pitchman rather than an entertainer. "I'm not a radio star," he once said. "I'm a partner in a client's business when I get his product to sell."

     In 1944 the radio pundit moved to the East Coast to hroad­ cast for the HPL over radio station WJZ in New York City. Three years later Drake went to WCBS in New York, which in 1954 would become the base of his first CBS network program, the Galen Drake Show. The show aired Saturday mornings at 10:15 EST and offered a mixture of music and Drake's wisdom and interviews. Billboard magazine reviewed the program in 1954 shortly after its debut: "Drake chats away, tells a few stories and interviews members of the studio audience who have the most unusual hobbies, are young grandmothers and are from out-of-town. There is no pretentiousness about the stanza or its entertainment, and yet it's most effective" (see Morse, 1954).

     Drake's CBS program performed so well that in 1957 ABC­ TV offered him a television show. However, Drake's appeal failed to translate to the new medium, leaving him to cling to his radio hase. He continued on WCBS until 1959, when he moved to radio station WOR in New York. His network pro­gram was picked up by the Mutual Broadcasting System, but Drake was nearing the end of his radio career. By 1963 he was off the air, a victim, perhaps, of diminishing radio audiences and the explosion of disc jockey programs. The personality's most notable show had been his nightly readings of the Bible over WOR, which began in 1960. In the mid-1960s, Drake returned to Long Beach, where he did occasional  advertisements and acted in the Salvation Army's Heartbeat Theater; a syndicated radio drama. Drake died of lung cancer in 1989.