Brewer & Shipley Didn't Take "One Toke Over the Line" Seriously, Then It Became a Hit

Mike Brewer began his music career writing songs and playing in coffee houses, eventually meeting Tom Shipley in Cleveland. They recorded their first album in 1968 and played mostly in Midwest college towns.Their song "One Toke Over the Line" was inspired by a backstage experience involving hashish. They wrote it in an hour and never thought to include it in a concert until one time they did it as an encore. The audience loved it, so they put it on their "Tarkio" album. The song reached #10 on Billboard's Hot 100 despite the Federal Communications Commission's ban on drug-related songs.It even made it on "The Lawrence Welk Show." You can watch here.You can listen to Brewer & Shipley's version here.Brewer & Shipley had two other Hot 100 hits: "Tarkio Road" (No. 55) and "Shake Off the Demon" (No. 98).The image in this episode's thumbnail shows Brewer & Shipley in 1971. Brewer is on the right. Attributed to Nick DeWolf, the photo originally was posted to Flickr as 020313 by steve the archivist, CC BY-SA 2.0. This tribute is one of 41 stories that Sheldon Zoldan, a longtime journalist, has written and recorded in honor of the music notables who passed away in 2024. He's written tributes for other years as well. You can listen to the ones from 2023 on Everyday Creation. Sheldon also created Song of the Day, which was a daily feature delivered to an email list of subscribers. He ended it in early 2026 which, I suppose, means that Song of the Day deserves a tribute of its own. The good thing is that the tributes to music makers live on. Each is a snapshot of the life of one music maker whose work made an impact on the lives of many.Send us Fan MailThis is Kate Jones. Thank you for listening to Everyday Creation®, available on YouTube and in major podcast directories including Apple, Spotify, iHeart and Audible.