In the case of Brewer & Shipley, the simplistic story goes thus: two folksingers who write their own material live and believe in being free on a farm in Kansas City with their wives and children, where they are all very happy.  One day, the two folksingers make an album in far off San Francisco.  A single is taken from the album ("One Toke Over The Line") and is a hit.  The  album, called "Tarkio" is also a hit.  Everyone lives happily ever after.

     This is closer to what really happened:

     Mike Brewer was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in 1944.  His father had wanted to be an artist but would up as a supervisor in the Post Office.  He was happy, so it was o.k.   Family life was warm and stable.  By the time he got out of high school Mike knew he wanted to make music a career.  "Lifestyle" would be more accurate.  He bumped around the country for five years, working the old coffeehouse circuit, running into Tom Shipley in Cleveland.  They met other times when their routes brought them to the same town but the idea of a partnership was still to come.   Mike went to California where, tired of working as a single, he joined a group.  It dissolved but one of the members Tom Mastin, remained.  They worked as a duo and recorded for Columbia.  When Mastin split, Mike sent for one of his brothers to come in as a replacement.  Eventually the brother returned to Oklahoma City and Mike settled down as a contract writer for Good Sam Music, an affiliate of A&M Records.  By this time, Tom Shipley was on his way to Los Angeles.

     Born in Mineral Ridge, Ohio, in 1942 Tom says, "we had a super-happy family.  The way I am now is because of the roots were there.  I have inner calm and I know that the truth lies somewhere in the open air.  It always did."

     He recalls that the music he heard around him as a youngster was what they used to call "cowboy music."  "I always liked that the whole family used to sing, riding in the car, sitting around the house.  Dad sang in the choir, my sister played piano, and I toyed with a trumpet.  None of us had any formal training but we had a lot of informal fun."

     During high school years, he spent summers camping.  He went to Baldwin Wallace College in Berea Ohio, developing an early interest in ecology.  "I studied singing to help my head ... also I learned guitar and luckily at that time there were a lot of hootenannies in clubs where you could go and sing your songs for people."

     This was around the 1960-61 when people like Ian & Sylvia, Judy Collins, Phil Ochs, Jim Glover (later of Jim & Jean) were taking off.   Competition was hot and Tom says: "The hoots became insane and it would be like ego-night at the club.  Great fun."

     After graduation he became the house musician at a club, playing nightly and working on his songs when not the bandstand.  Then he got married, bought his bride a trailer, put the trailer on the back of a Volkswagen and headed for California, where he freaked.  They came back to Ohio after the summer.  "I couldn't make the school scene at all.  We went up to Toronto because I thought 'why not?'.  The folk scene was peaking and there were clubs everywhere and they were great.  Of course it didn't stay like that because nothing ever does, and when the clubs started to close I came back to California."

     Tom arrived in 1968 and ran into Mike.  "I already had a publishing arrangement with Good Sam, but Tom didn't , so he linked with me in my deal and after writing together for a year we decided to form a total duo and perform our own material."

     During their Los Angeles stay they lived atop Mount Washington.  "It was sort of a magic mountain with a lot of swamis and magicians and witches around."  A lot of songs got written and a lot of 99 cent Liefraumilch was consumed.  But eventually L.A. got to them in a bad way.  They weren't happy with the city or what they were doing.  Mike recalls: "It was really a drag, it was really foreign to us to have to face it like a job, you know, just cranking out songs we started to feel like a jukebox.  And there wasn't anything personal happening with anyone, it wasn't fun.  It wasn't making any sense.  It has to be fun.  So .... we split."

     Tom lived in a tent on a Hopi Indian reservation for a while; out of this experience come some of the duo's most powerful songs including "Too Soon Tomorrow," and "Song From Platte River."  

     Brewer & Shipley and their families have settled on a small farm in Missouri.  "People like Jesse James and Quantrell used to hide out around here," says Mike, adding, "We can keep in touch with the cities while we're on tour; that way we don't have to live in them."

     Tom & Mike worked in various clubs in Missouri, Oklahoma, and neighboring states. "Going back to Kansas City was really great," says Tom.  "We had forgotten how it used to be .... forgotten the freedom we had as traveling folksingers.  Working in and around Hollywood sometimes obscures memories of the healthy heartland of America.  Nice to know it's still there."

     Around this time two things happened;  A&M released an album "Down In L.A." which Brewer and Shipley now disavow, claiming that it is made up of old demos.  The other thing that happened was a man name Stan Plesser, who owned and operated a management firm named Good Karma.  He signed them.  From there they went to Kama Sutra Records and the cutting of what they consider their first album, "Weeds."  Produced by Nick Gravenites in San Francisco, it was the first time Brewer & Shipley had put their "Open Road" music on record.  Sidemen on the album includes Richard Greene (now of Seatrain) on violin and Michael Bloomfield on guitar, Nicky Hopkins on keyboards among others.

     The album sold moderately well and it gave an impetus to the duo, their manager and label.  A promotion campaign was launched Brewer & Shipley spent more time on the road and the importance of the clubs they played began to rise - The Bitter End in New York, the Troubadour in Los Angeles and a grueling tour of talent college talent buyers' conventions.  By the time their second album, "Tarkio" was released, everyone could sense something big around the corner.  The single "One Toke Over The Line" was pulled from the album and hit the top ten.  The album bounced onto the charts.  The years that Brewer & Shipley had put in, their belief in their musical and personal live styles had paid off.

     How do you keep 'em down in L.A. after they've seen the farm?

Correction on this press release:
Kama Sutra's 1971 press release claims Brewer & Shipley disavowed their first album "Down In L.A." as made of old demos.  In reality, this was a misstatement of the facts.  Several songs of on the album were originally written as demos for other artists, but Brewer & Shipley's demos exhibited such a sound and style of their own that A&M asked them to record their songs themselves.  "Down In L.A." was their brilliant debut album and was produced as an album, not a package of demo tapes released as an album.
See Myths & Misinformation page.