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. 

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.

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.    

"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 a lot of 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 years into their musical partnership, Michael Brewer and Tom Shipley are still writing, performing, and adding to the soundtrack of our lives.