Tokin’ of Appreciation: Brewer & Shipley talk Kansas City memories ahead of their 50th anniversary show next weekend

Neither Michael Brewer nor Tom Shipley are technically Kansas City natives; Brewer was born in Oklahoma, Shipley’s from Ohio. But they landed here in 1968 after a stint trying to break into the music business in Los Angeles. “We saw the lifestyle out there and pretty quickly realized we were not Hollywood guys,” Shipley says. They knew a couple locals who wanted to start a production company. Kansas City, they figured. Why the hell not? 

Brewer and Shipley, as their folk-rock duo came to be named, had cut a record, Down in L.A., and they made KC their home base while they toured the campuses, clubs, and coffee shops on the Midwestern folkie circuit. (Steve Martin, then doing his banjo-comedy routine, sometimes opened for them.) A few years later, they landed a hit: the zeitgeisty hippie-folk ditty “One Toke Over the Line,” which shot up to #10 on the American charts (and #5 in Canada). They hobnobbed with the likes of David Crosby, Jefferson Airplane, and Jerry Garcia (who played guitar on a song from their 1970 album, Tarkio) and threw some pretty big beatnik parties, including a famously massive one at Loose Park. In the late 70s, Brewer and Shipley split up, though they reunited in 1987 for a show at Starlight Theatre and have performed intermittently ever since. 

On Friday, March 9, they’ll celebrate the 50th anniversary of Down in L.A., with a show at the Uptown Theatre, with support from locals the Nace Brothers and Bob Walkenhorst. Brewer and Shipley remain Missouri residents — they live in Branson and Rolla, respectively — and we checked in with them separately to talk about the good old days and the upcoming celebration. 

Tell me about moving to Kansas City in 1968. What was that all about? 

Shipley: Well, when we were still in L.A., we’d toured the Midwest and played at this place in Kansas City called the Vanguard. Everybody played there. It was at 43rd and Main. And a couple of our friends at the Vanguard said, “Come here, settle here, we’ll start this production company together and start putting together shows.” We were homeless essentially at that time. When we toured, I’d bring camping gear and stuff. So we said, Sure. 

Brewer: We’d played the Vanguard in ‘67 over Christmas and New Year’s, and our opening act was Steve Martin. It was a really fun couple of weeks. The Vanguard guys wanted to form a company and they needed somebody with a record, and we happened to have one. So together we formed Good Karma Productions there in Kansas City and started touring the heartland. Good Karma was kind of like the Pony Express: it only lasted a couple of years, but it seems much longer than that. 

Where’d you live? 

Shipley: We lived at the Good Karma offices when we first got there. That was also at 43rd and Main, caddy corner from the Vanguard. Michael was on the first floor, I was on the second, and Danny Cox was on the third floor. Danny was a big singer on the folk circuit at the time. He played at the Vanguard a lot. Then we moved out to Raytown. 

Brewer: The reason we left L.A. in the first place is because we wanted to live in the country. But there’s not a lot of nature at 43rd and Main. So our manager at Good Karma found this place on 15 acres with woods and a two-acre pond out in Raytown. There was a shack I lived in on one side, and a shack on the other side that Tom lived in. We called it Happy Acres. It’s totally developed now, of course. There’s condos around the lake, with a big Japanese bridge and gazebo. 

You guys left Kansas City in 1974. How come?  

Brewer: Again, it was wanting to live further out in the country. One day we came home to the property in Raytown — this was after “One Toke” — and somebody had stolen the mailbox with our names on it and the tree stump that it was attached to. I suppose they were probably fans. But we were like, Maybe it’s time to get out of town. We’re country guys. We like the ticks and the chiggers. 

Shipley: Once the “One Toke “money came in, it didn’t matter where I lived. I was on the road 250 days a year. And I’ve been a fly fishermen since I was a kid. In Kansas City, I’d often drive down to the Current River to fish. I found a house down by Rolla, which I like because there’s a university here with a good engineering school. So you don’t have to drive far to see people from all over the world. But I can also go fly fishing a couple times a week. 

How did it happen that Jerry Garcia played on the Tarkio album? 

Shipley: We were recording in San Francisco in the same studio at the same time as the [Jefferson] Airplane and the Dead. And between all the studios there was a communal area, and we got to know Jerry that way. Plus, our bass player, John Kahn, played bass with Jerry when Jerry wasn’t playing with the Dead — on some of those David Grisman albums. Anyway, we were all hanging out and burning weed in the common area one day and it was just one of those deals where everybody would play on everybody else’s records. There was no money being exchanged or anything. I think that’s what made San Francisco so cool in those days. 

You guys played a pretty huge show at Loose Park, correct? 

Brewer: Yes. About 30,000 people showed up. There was one police officer [laughs]. He was a friendly guy. This was right after Woodstock, so everybody knew to behave. People were parking on lawns and driveways all around the park. It made the national news. I remember seeing Walter Cronkite on TV saying there had been two big events in the U.S. that day: Sly and the Family Stone kept a crowd waiting for three hours and riots had broken out, and Brewer and Shipley threw a free concert in Kansas City and 30,000 people showed up, and there were no incidences. We were hoping for a couple thousand people. It turned into a real “Be-In.” The PA couldn’t handle it and half the people couldn’t hear the music. But it was a great time. I think somebody even gave birth somewhere in the crowd. 

Brewer and Shipley reunited in Kansas City in 1987. How’d that go?  

Shipley: We hadn’t played together for about six years. I just reached a point where I couldn’t tour anymore. But we got offered what was to us a lot of money, and I needed it, and Michael needed it, and so they flew us in and we played a show at Starlight that sold out after just a couple days. After that, we started doing weekend-warrior type of stuff — a week and a half of shows in Colorado or on the East Coast, instead of these big, long tours. And we continue that to this day.

What’s up with the show at the Uptown? 

Brewer: Fifty years! Well, I guess time flies when you don’t know what you’re doing. We played the Uptown many times over the years. We’ll do every song we can remember, and we’ll have some old friends joining us. The Nace Brothers are going to do a special acoustic show. It seems like it’s shaping up into a big ol’ party. 

Where would you get weed in Westport back in the day?

Shipley: [Laughs]. Well, I won’t give you his name because he still lives in Kansas City, but my main guy did janitorial kind of work at venues around town, like at the Cowtown Ballroom and a couple other places. Drugs were pretty free-flowing in Westport back then. That’s what was so cool about it. It didn’t have that North Beach aura, and it didn’t have that Village thing going on. It was just a couple pubs, some folks hanging out and smoking. The other place you could get weed in Westport was the Temple Slug. Several years back, my sons moved to Kansas City, and while I was helping them move in I figured, what the heck, while I’m here I’ll get a new piece, a new pipe. So I went to Temple Slug looking for one. But all they were selling was futons. I was seriously bummed.