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photo: Jim
Goss |
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MICHAEL BREWER & TOM SHIPLEY
began
their individual careers as folk artists on the American and Canadian folk
club circuit in the early 1960s. Both native mid-westerns (Oklahoman and
Ohioan respective to their billing), they first met in 1964 at the famed
Blind Owl coffee house in Kent, Ohio. It would be three more years before
they would team up, and during those three years the two crossed paths at
clubs on the folk circuit, and each tried their hand in other musical groups
that didn’t pan out. |
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Down In L.A. |
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By 1967,
Michael’s previous musical group had split up, leading to him accept a job
as a staff songwriter at
Good Sam Music,
a publishing offshoot of the newly formed A&M records in Los Angeles.
Around that same time, Tom arrived in
L.A.
and looked Michael up. Tom rented a house around the corner from Michael’s
house, and almost immediately they began writing songs together. When Tom
was also hired as staff writer for Good Sam Music in 1967, their partnership
officially began as a songwriting partnership.
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As staff
songwriters, their
early songs
were recorded by Glen Yarborough, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, H.P.
Lovecraft, The Poor, The Afex, The Black Sheep, Noel Harrison, and Bobby
Rydell. A&M Records soon recognized that Michael & Tom’s demo
recordings exhibited a unique sound and style of their own, so they
green lighted Michael and Tom to record their songs for an A&M album.
Their debut album Brewer & Shipley Down In L.A. was
released by A&M in 1968. |
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Finding
Good Karma in the heartland |
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Even with a
newly released album and mutual friends who were starting to make it big in
L.A. in bands such as The Association, The Byrds,
and Buffalo Springfield, Michael and Tom disliked their life in
L.A. and
decided to move back to the
Midwest. They ended up settling in
Kansas City,
Missouri. Tom described their decision to settle in Missouri as one of
fortunate circumstance. "There was a music scene built up in Kansas City,
and Michael and I used to come during Christmas and it was great. There
would be clouds in the sky -- you don't see clouds in LA, just the haze.
"We
really didn't care for
L.A.
very much," explained Michael. "We had just had enough, and figured there
had to be a better way to make music, without living there. So we left
California, and ended up coming back to the heartland. We ended up in Kansas
City and started a management/production company with some friends,
Good Karma Productions.
"At the
time, it was just unheard of to not live in L.A., Nashville, or New York if
you're actually in the business. So the people at A&M pretty much thought
that we'd just quit the business and gone home. But, of course, we hadn't.
We were just going back to what we'd originally done, which was traveling
around and performing our songs for people. We got out of our contracts with
no problem, 'cause they just assumed we'd quit the business.
"Our
management went to the east coast to shop some labels. Buddah signed us,
because Neil Bogart (Buddah President) at the time was known as the king of
bubblegum -- you know, 1910 Fruitgum Company and all that stuff. He was
trying to shatter that image, and looking for album artists. And that's what
Tom and I were. We were never about singles. Every song on our albums was
just as important as the next one. All of our albums, we meant to be whole
packages." |
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Album Artists |
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Brewer &
Shipley have recorded original material albums for four different
labels, A&M Records, Buddah/Kama Sutra Records, Capitol Records, & their own
One Toke Productions. Their greatest commercial success was with Kama
Sutra where they released four albums in the space of four years: Weeds, Tarkio, Shake Off The
Demon, and Rural Space. After leaving Buddah/Kama Sutra
they were signed by Capitol Records and they
released two albums in two years on Capitol: ST11261 and Welcome
To Riddle Bridge. They split up for a few years in 1980, and
since reuniting in 1987, they have released two albums on their own One
Toke Productions label: Shanghai & Heartland. |
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None of their albums would equal the commercial appeal of
Tarkio which included their breakout single “One Toke Over The
Line,” but all their albums were well crafted with
standout musicians playing predominantly Brewer & Shipley
written songs. Mitch Jayne of the Dillards explained, “People
never cease to be amazed by Brewer and Shipley who since 1968 have been
assembling their careful albums with the same skill fiddle makers use;
each one an example of the best work that they had learned to do so far.
Album buyers
understood that these men were designers, not pop music freaks, and as
prolific as they were, they didn't write songs to any formula. Each
album, from Down In L.A. to Heartland, was a meticulously woven tapestry
of fabric they had invented one song at a time."
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One Toke Over The Line |
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“One Toke
Over The Line” on, their third album, Tarkio
immediately connected with the record buying public and became a Top Ten Hit
in 1971. It took Brewer & Shipley on quite a roller coaster
ride that year. Just as it was peaking on the charts,
the Vice President of the United States,
Spiro Agnew labeled
Brewer & Shipley subversive to America’s youth and then strong-armed the FCC to
pull “One Toke Over The Line” from the airwaves. |
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They
made Nixon’s famous Enemies List, a badge of honor which they still
wear proudly today. As it turned out, they couldn't have paid
for better publicity and ended up playing their counter culture hit
song on several
national television shows in the US, Canada, and the UK. Their iconic
song was even covered on the
Lawrence Welk Show. “One
Toke” has lived on to become a classic rock anthem, but Brewer &
Shipley wrote the song tongue-firmly-in-cheek. Michael
explained, "We had been songwriters for so long that it was just
another song for us. It wasn't even one of our favorites. We
always thought our ballads were our better songs.
Other people chose to make a big deal out of it. We were really
happy just to get a hit, even if it wasn't necessarily the one we
would have picked. We're really glad people still like it."
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Consummate live performers |
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While
crafting wonderful albums with some of the best musicians in the world
backing them, Brewer & Shipley were always at their best
as live performers. Whether with a small backing band, or more often
by themselves with just their two acoustic guitars, the duo was constantly touring
from 1969 to 1979. They played all over the country including in such notable
venues as Carnegie Hall, The Bottom Line, The Troubadour, The Roxy, Keil
Opera House, and Arrowhead
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Stadium. Because of
their broad appeal, they became a favored support act for major
tours, and
shared the stage with a diverse list of artists, including:
Elton John, The Eagles, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, Bonnie Raitt, Electric Light Orchestra, Blood Sweat
& Tears, James Taylor, Stephen Stills, The Beach Boys, Loggins &
Messina, Linda Ronstadt, John Sebastian, and The Ozark Mountain Daredevils among others. |
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Setting sails and casting dreams |
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In 1980,
after more than a decade of writing, recording, traveling, and performing,
Brewer and Shipley amicably parted company to pursue separate personal
interests. "There was no big break up," Brewer said. "We'd been on the
road too many years, it almost killed us." "We were burned out," Shipley
agreed.
Michael
continued to make music, recording a solo album for Dan Fogelberg’s Full
Moon Records entitled Beauty Lies (1983). Tom began working as a television
producer/director, eventually forming his own production company Tarkio
Communications. He later founded the Oral History of The Ozarks Project, a
non-profit organization producing documentaries about life in the Missouri
Ozarks.
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One kind favor brings
them back together |
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In 1987,
at the request of a
Kansas City
radio station, Brewer & Shipley reunited for a concert to celebrate the
station's first birthday. Unsure of what to expect after being out of
the public eye for so long, the duo was overwhelmed as they walked on
stage to over 10,000 cheering fans welcoming their return.
Having come full circle from their days as staff songwriters living in
Los Angeles, Michael and Tom began writing together again. Their first
project was the
soundtrack for one of Tom's documentaries...the award winning, "Treehouse
An Ozark Story". Since reuniting in 1987 Brewer & Shipley have
released two albums
Shanghai
(1993) and Heartland (1997).
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After
reuniting, both have continued their own
interests. Today, Tom is busy in his role as Manager of Video
Production for Missouri University of Science and Technology, and
Michael continues to write songs and has released two more solo albums,
Retro
Man (2004), and It Is What It Is (2010). |
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Every
little thing we're puttin' out returns to us again |
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In the
last decade plus, the duo has witnessed rejuvenated interest in their
music, beginning with BMG's purchase of their Kama Sutra catalog and
subsequent re-issue of the critically acclaimed Tarkio release.
This was soon followed by the inclusion of "One Toke Over The Line" on
the Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas motion picture soundtrack. A
live record of classic performances from 1973, Archive Alive, was
released in 1997, the same year they released an album of new material
Heartland on their own One Toke Productions label. The duo also
contributed guest vocals on their trademark song “One Toke Over the
Line” on the 1998 Rainmakers cover of their hit for the Hempilation
II (Free The Weed) CD. That was followed by BMG’s release of
Best of Brewer & Shipley: One Toke Over The Line in 2001, and
Collectors Choice/BMG’s release of a twofer CD of their first two
classic Kama Sutra albums Weeds & Tarkio, in 2004. Michael’s
second solo album Retro Man was also released in 2004, and his third solo album It Is What It Is
was released in 2010.
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Last Of The Hippies? |
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"I never considered myself a hippie,"
commented Michael. "I was a young, married man paying taxes, working,
pursuing a career. I wore the clothes of the time and had long hair -- back
when I had hair -- but I never lived in a commune. I actually bathed and
shaved."
Tom, however, had no problem with the label. "Back in the days when
we were officially card-carrying hippies traveling cross-country and living
out of our Volkswagen," he says, "I spent some time on a Hopi
reservation out in the middle of Arizona. But I did not take acid and go
running naked through any of their pueblos. And I bathed."
Nevertheless, he is aware of the legacy and chalice they carry, laden with
the fragrance of long ago. "We were playing the Catskills a few years ago,"
he recalls, "and this beautiful girl comes gliding across the floor, just
glowing. She comes up to Michael and takes his hand and clutches it toward
her chest. 'You guys,' she says, 'are the last of the hippies. When you're
gone there won't be any more.'"
But don't
despair just yet, 40 plus years into their musical partnership, Michael Brewer
and Tom Shipley are still writing, performing, and adding to the soundtrack
of our lives. If you
would like to see them live, visit the
Shows
page for tour information. You can also leave them a note on the message board
on this website. |
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Bios |
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