Brewer & Shipley

Early history

After earning a geology degree from Baldwin Wallace College in 1963, Tom Shipley began playing the coffeehouse circuit. In Kent, Ohio, he met Oklahoman Michael Brewer, and they formed a duo. Moving to Los Angeles in 1968, they were unhappy there, and their first album Down in L.A., which featured their demos, was released without their consent. Their next album was Weeds.

Although they had mutual friends in bands like The Association and Buffalo Springfield living in Los Angeles, they left California during 1969 and returned to Kansas City, Missouri, earning a meager living playing college towns. They named their next album Tarkio after a regular gig in Tarkio, Missouri. This album was their most successful commercially and included "One Toke Over the Line," which they wrote as a joke backstage before a performance.

The song was performed on The Lawrence Welk Show by Gail Farrell and Dick Dale; Welk called it a modern spiritual. Brewer & Shipley performed with acts including Stephen Stills, Bruce Springsteen, Black Sabbath, and Jerry Garcia, who played pedal steel guitar on "Oh, Mommy."

Regrouping and later touring

After a 1989 reunion show, Brewer and Shipley started writing together again, releasing Shanghai in 1993 and Heartland in 1997. To mark the Tarkio album’s 40th anniversary, they played a 2011 show on Main Street in Tarkio, Missouri. The documentary One Toke Over the Line ... and Still Smokin' came out on Vimeo on Demand on April 20, 2021. They kept performing live until the COVID-19 pandemic halted shows in 2020.

Michael Brewer lived near Branson, Missouri, and died on December 17, 2024, at age 80. Tom Shipley lived in Rolla, Missouri, worked at Missouri University of Science & Technology as a video production manager, and traveled twice to Bolivia with Engineers Without Borders to make videos. He died on August 24, 2025, at age 84.

In popular culture

In the first chapter of Hunter S. Thompson's novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Dr. Gonzo sings the line "One toke over the line, sweet Jesus, one toke over the line." The song appears as an addiction status in the video game Grand Theft Auto IV. A cat named Shipley appears in Tom Cox's memoir Under the Paw: Confessions of a Cat Man. The song is heard on Bill Murray's headphones in the movie St. Vincent (2014) and is listed on its soundtrack credits.