Michael Brewer: A Folk Rock Legend Takes His Final Bow
Man, this one stings. Michael Brewer, the soulful voice and brilliant mind behind Brewer & Shipley, has left us. If you’ve ever belted out “One Toke Over the Line” with a grin on your face, you know the magic he brought to music. He wasn’t just a singer—he was a storyteller, a rebel, and somehow, a friend to anyone who listened.
Brewer had that rare gift of making you feel something real. His songs were warm, witty, and unapologetically human—just like him. He wore his spot on Nixon’s enemies list like a rock ‘n’ roll badge of honor and always seemed to have a spark of mischief behind those iconic lyrics.
Michael Brewer’s voice may have gone quiet, but his music? That’s forever. Light one up (or don’t) and play his songs loud today. Here’s to a guy who made life a little more fun, a little more free, and a hell of a lot more musical. Rest easy, Michael—you’ll always be in tune with us.
Michael Brewer – Our Conversation About Everything from Nixon To Lawrence Welk
Michael Brewer:
“Uh… yeah, the first time we played Carnegie Hall, we were opening for Melanie, and, uh… we went over really well. Got a few encores, we basically ran out of songs. And we had just written ‘One Toke Over the Line’ a couple of days earlier. And so we thought, well, let’s do that new song—we have nothing to lose. So we did, and everybody loved it. The president of the record company we were with at the time came backstage, and he said, ‘Oh man, you gotta record that! You gotta add that to the album.’ We were working on our Tarkio album at the time.
“So, it kind of took us by surprise because, you have to understand, we wrote the song, we literally wrote it just entertaining ourselves and to make our friends laugh. We didn’t even take it seriously. We hadn’t even thought about recording it.
“So anyway—excuse me—we did. We recorded it, finished the album, and turned it in. Then we took a break, went down to the Florida Keys to do some fishing, and, uh… we came back to find out that they’d released it as a single, and it was shooting up the charts.
“And we were in big trouble. Richard Nixon—you got on his list, right? Michael, you were on his, you know… shiitake mushroom list. There’s another word I wanted to use there, but you were on the list.
“We made Nixon’s enemies list, which we held as a badge of honor and still do. And Vice President Spiro Agnew named us personally on national TV one night as subversives to American youth. Hilarious.
Big Jim:
“So, we were looking up some of the gigs here in Detroit…and we had you all over Detroit”
Michael Brewer:
“Well, I don’t even know that one, I gotta tell you. It was, uh, yeah—’69. January of ’69. Well, you know more than I do. I do remember playing Detroit one time with, uh, uh… guys. The name just went straight out of my head. Ted Nugent and the Amboy Dukes.”
Big Jim:
“You opened for Nugent?”
Michael Brewer:
“Yeah.”
Big Jim:
“So here you guys are—you’re a folk band, and you’re opening for Nugent. Was the crowd receptive to it?”
Michael Brewer:
“No. It’s called, uh, creative booking.
“We’ve shared the stage with a lot of groups that, you know… it was just crazy because we just went wherever we were booked, did the show, and went on to the next city.
“Yeah, we did 28 cities in 28 nights opening for Jethro Tull when their Passion Play tour was happening in stadiums. That was crazy. I mean, I can’t tell you how many Roman candles and railroad flares we dodged on stage and stuff. It was nuts. It was nuts.
Big Jim:
“Where were you when you found out Lawrence Welk had done a version of your song?”
Michael Brewer:
“We were in London. If it hadn’t been for my mother watching that very broadcast, I wouldn’t have believed it in the first place. But my brother said he was walking past the room, and it stopped him dead in his tracks when he realized what they were playing. And our mother was going, ‘No, no, Lawrence, no. Lawrence, no.’
