Brewer & Shipley this morning – recorded at A&R Recording Studios and broadcast live over WPLJ in New York on December 9, 1971.
You may be asking yourself; how do you know these guys and what’s the significance of this gig this morning?
Well – for those of you who know – skip this part. For those of you who don’t know – read on:
Brewer & Shipley were an American folk rock duo who enjoyed their peak success in the late 1960s through the 1970s. The duo consisted of singer-songwriters Mike Brewer and Tom Shipley (who passed away yesterday). They were known for their intricate guitar work, vocal harmonies, and socially conscious lyrics which reflected the concerns of their generation – especially the Vietnam War, and the struggles for personal and political freedom. Their greatest commercial success was the song “One Toke Over the Line” from their 1970 album Tarkio. They had two other singles on the Billboard charts: “Tarkio Road” (1970) and “Shake Off the Demon” (1971). They continued to perform, both separately and together, usually in the Midwest United States.
The two songwriters crossed paths numerous times at various coffeehouse gigs before settling in Los Angeles to write music together in 1968, producing their first two albums, Down in L.A. (which featured their demos and was released without their consent) and Weeds. Even though mutual friends in bands such as The Association and Buffalo Springfield lived in Los Angeles, they left California during 1969, returning to Kansas City, Missouri, where they made a meager living playing college towns. They derived the name of their next album, Tarkio, from a regular gig they played in Tarkio, Missouri. This album was their most successful commercially, featuring the song “One Toke Over the Line”,[1] which they wrote as a joke while preparing backstage for a performance.
“One Toke Over The Line” was performed on The Lawrence Welk Show, a television program known for its conservative, family-oriented format, by Gail Farrell and Dick Dale. At the conclusion of the performance of the song, Welk remarked, without any hint of irony, “There you’ve heard a modern spiritual by Gail and Dale.” This caused Brewer to comment:
The Vice President of the United States, Spiro Agnew, named us personally as a subversive to American youth, but at exactly the same time Lawrence Welk performed the crazy thing and introduced it as a gospel song. That shows how absurd it really is. Of course, we got more publicity than we could have paid for.
Brewer & Shipley performed with many notable acts, including Stephen Stills, Bruce Springsteen, Black Sabbath, and Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead, who played pedal steel guitar for “Oh, Mommy”.
Tom Shipley left us on the 19th of this month – and although the duo regularly performed up until just recently, their reputations faded into the memory banks of those who were around at the time and who giggled at the thought Lawrence Welk declared it was an anthem for the Born-Again Jesus craze taking off around the country.
Times have changed but history keeps plodding along – and thankfully, Brewer and Shipley are part of that history.
Back to our regularly scheduled high voltage tomorrow.
