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Hits seem to explain everything that happened before in the professional and
personal life of an artist; hits make everything seem simple, though it
never was or is.
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 wound 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 life styles had paid off.
How do you keep 'em down in L.A. after they've seen the farm?
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