Michael Brewer, Whose ‘One Toke’ Was a Big Hit, Is Dead at 80
- By cigaretteman
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Michael Brewer, half of the folk-rock duo Brewer & Shipley, who scored an unlikely Top 10 hit in 1971 with “One Toke Over the Line” — one of the most overt pop odes to marijuana of the hippie era and presumably the only one to be performed on the squeaky-clean “Lawrence Welk Show” — died on Tuesday at his home near Branson, Mo. He was 80.
His death was confirmed in a social media post by his longtime recording and performing partner, Tom Shipley. No cause was given.
While often categorized as a one-hit wonder, Brewer & Shipley actually notched two other singles on the Billboard Hot 100: “Tarkio Road,” which climbed to No. 55 in June 1970, and “Shake Off the Demon,” which sneaked in at No. 98 in February 1972.
Image
Mr. Brewer, left, and Mr. Shipley met in a coffee house in Kent, Ohio.Credit...Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
The duo, who recorded many albums in the 1970s and a few more in the ’90s, were known for their songs’ socially conscious lyrics on topics like the Vietnam War. But it was their sunny signature tune, with its indelible line “One toke over the line, sweet Jesus,” that etched them into pop-culture history.
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At the outset, Mr. Brewer and Mr. Shipley considered the song anything but a potentially career-defining composition. “We wrote it literally entertaining ourselves and to make our friends laugh,” Mr. Brewer recalled in a 2022 interview on the music podcast “A Breath of Fresh Air.”
The two were between sets during a gig at a nightclub in Kansas City, Mo., when inspiration, fueled by some potent cannabis, hit.
“We were getting ready to go onstage for our fourth set,” Mr. Brewer said, “and a friend came by with some really good Lebanese hash. We stepped out back and took a couple of tokes and came back in to tune up for our last set, and Tom said, ‘Man, I’m one toke over the line.’ And I just cracked up.”
Mr. Brewer began improvising a melody around that line, and the next day the two banged out the song in about an hour.
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At the time, they were recording their third album, “Tarkio” (1970), and considered “One Toke” too trifling to commit to wax. They performed it live only out of necessity when they opened for the singer-songwriter Melanie at Carnegie Hall not long afterward.
“We went over really well, had a couple of encores, and then we basically ran out of songs,” Mr. Brewer told Rockcellar magazine in 2012. “We said, ‘Let’s do that new song. Nothin’ to lose.’ So we did, and everybody loved it.”
To their surprise, their record label insisted that they include it on their forthcoming album. The next thing they knew, it was a single, which peaked at No. 10 on the Billboard singles chart in April 1971. But as Brewer & Shipley would soon find out, that was a fraught era for drug songs.
Charles Michael Brewer was born on April 14, 1944, in Oklahoma City, the eldest of four children. He played drums and sang in a rock band in high school before switching to guitar. After graduation in 1962, he began performing his own songs in coffee houses around the country and eventually met Mr. Shipley, who grew up near Cleveland, at one in Kent, Ohio.
Settling in San Francisco in 1965, Mr. Brewer formed the duo Mastin & Brewer with the singer-songwriter Tom Mastin, whose song “How Do You Feel” would be recorded by Jefferson Airplane. After moving to Los Angeles, the two signed with Columbia Records and formed a band that opened for top acts like the Byrds and Buffalo Springfield.
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Mr. Mastin, who suffered from depression, left the band before they could cut an album. Mr. Brewer then joined forces with Mr. Shipley, who by then was living near him in Los Angeles, and they signed on as staff songwriters for a publishing arm of A&M Records.
“Michael and I were both Midwesterners, Midwestern values,” Mr. Shipley said in “One Toke Over the Line … and Still Smokin’,” a 2021 documentary about the duo. “Neither one of us were looking for stardom.”
Still, they started playing their own compositions around town and recorded their first album, “Down in L.A.,” released by A&M in 1968.
The success of “One Toke Over the Line,” recorded after the duo returned to the Midwest, brought complications. In September 1970, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, in a speech in Las Vegas, warned that drug use was threatening “to sap our national strength” and called out a number of pop songs, including the Beatles’ “With a Little Help From My Friends” and the Byrds’ “Eight Miles High,” as “latent drug culture propaganda.”
Within a year, under the Nixon administration, the Federal Communications Commission warned broadcasters about playing songs with lyrics that might promote drug use. As a result, “One Toke Over the Line” was banned by radio stations in Buffalo, Miami, Houston, Washington, Chicago, Dallas and New York. Brewer & Shipley, Mr. Brewer said, came to embrace the crackdown as “a badge of honor.”
Information about his survivors was not immediately available.
The duo continued to perform for years, and Mr. Brewer also made a few albums as a solo artist.
His death was confirmed in a social media post by his longtime recording and performing partner, Tom Shipley. No cause was given.
While often categorized as a one-hit wonder, Brewer & Shipley actually notched two other singles on the Billboard Hot 100: “Tarkio Road,” which climbed to No. 55 in June 1970, and “Shake Off the Demon,” which sneaked in at No. 98 in February 1972.
Image
Mr. Brewer, left, and Mr. Shipley met in a coffee house in Kent, Ohio.Credit...Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
The duo, who recorded many albums in the 1970s and a few more in the ’90s, were known for their songs’ socially conscious lyrics on topics like the Vietnam War. But it was their sunny signature tune, with its indelible line “One toke over the line, sweet Jesus,” that etched them into pop-culture history.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
At the outset, Mr. Brewer and Mr. Shipley considered the song anything but a potentially career-defining composition. “We wrote it literally entertaining ourselves and to make our friends laugh,” Mr. Brewer recalled in a 2022 interview on the music podcast “A Breath of Fresh Air.”
The two were between sets during a gig at a nightclub in Kansas City, Mo., when inspiration, fueled by some potent cannabis, hit.
“We were getting ready to go onstage for our fourth set,” Mr. Brewer said, “and a friend came by with some really good Lebanese hash. We stepped out back and took a couple of tokes and came back in to tune up for our last set, and Tom said, ‘Man, I’m one toke over the line.’ And I just cracked up.”
Mr. Brewer began improvising a melody around that line, and the next day the two banged out the song in about an hour.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
At the time, they were recording their third album, “Tarkio” (1970), and considered “One Toke” too trifling to commit to wax. They performed it live only out of necessity when they opened for the singer-songwriter Melanie at Carnegie Hall not long afterward.
“We went over really well, had a couple of encores, and then we basically ran out of songs,” Mr. Brewer told Rockcellar magazine in 2012. “We said, ‘Let’s do that new song. Nothin’ to lose.’ So we did, and everybody loved it.”
To their surprise, their record label insisted that they include it on their forthcoming album. The next thing they knew, it was a single, which peaked at No. 10 on the Billboard singles chart in April 1971. But as Brewer & Shipley would soon find out, that was a fraught era for drug songs.
Charles Michael Brewer was born on April 14, 1944, in Oklahoma City, the eldest of four children. He played drums and sang in a rock band in high school before switching to guitar. After graduation in 1962, he began performing his own songs in coffee houses around the country and eventually met Mr. Shipley, who grew up near Cleveland, at one in Kent, Ohio.
Settling in San Francisco in 1965, Mr. Brewer formed the duo Mastin & Brewer with the singer-songwriter Tom Mastin, whose song “How Do You Feel” would be recorded by Jefferson Airplane. After moving to Los Angeles, the two signed with Columbia Records and formed a band that opened for top acts like the Byrds and Buffalo Springfield.
Advertisement
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Mr. Mastin, who suffered from depression, left the band before they could cut an album. Mr. Brewer then joined forces with Mr. Shipley, who by then was living near him in Los Angeles, and they signed on as staff songwriters for a publishing arm of A&M Records.
“Michael and I were both Midwesterners, Midwestern values,” Mr. Shipley said in “One Toke Over the Line … and Still Smokin’,” a 2021 documentary about the duo. “Neither one of us were looking for stardom.”
Still, they started playing their own compositions around town and recorded their first album, “Down in L.A.,” released by A&M in 1968.
The success of “One Toke Over the Line,” recorded after the duo returned to the Midwest, brought complications. In September 1970, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, in a speech in Las Vegas, warned that drug use was threatening “to sap our national strength” and called out a number of pop songs, including the Beatles’ “With a Little Help From My Friends” and the Byrds’ “Eight Miles High,” as “latent drug culture propaganda.”
Within a year, under the Nixon administration, the Federal Communications Commission warned broadcasters about playing songs with lyrics that might promote drug use. As a result, “One Toke Over the Line” was banned by radio stations in Buffalo, Miami, Houston, Washington, Chicago, Dallas and New York. Brewer & Shipley, Mr. Brewer said, came to embrace the crackdown as “a badge of honor.”
Information about his survivors was not immediately available.
The duo continued to perform for years, and Mr. Brewer also made a few albums as a solo artist.
