‘One Toke Over the Line’ Singer and Writer Tom Shipley Dead at 84

Tom Shipley of Brewer & Shipley, the duo finest recognized for the 1971 High 10 hit “One Toke Over the Line,” has died of unspecified causes on the age of 84.

The New York Instances confirmed the information with Shipley’s son Marc, who stated his father died on Aug. 24 at a hospital in Columbia, Missouri. Shipley’s duo companion Mike Brewer died in 2024.

The band’s greatest hit, which humorously chronicles a real-life incident when Shipley indulged in a bit an excessive amount of marijuana, wasn’t initially supposed for launch.

“‘One Toke Over the Line’ was a tune we wrote to amuse ourselves one night time, attempting to provide you with one thing to make our pals snort. The primary time we performed Carnegie Corridor, we opened for Melanie and we did fairly effectively; we bought a number of encores and we ran out of songs,” Shipley’s companion Brewer advised UCR in 2016.

“So we stated, “Okay, let’s try this new tune.’ The president of the report firm we have been with on the time got here backstage and he stated, ‘Oh, you gotta report that for the album.’ Which type of shocked us, as a result of like I stated, we did not take it actual significantly.”

Learn Extra: Rock’s Largest One-Hit Wonders

Launched on the duo’s fourth album Tarkio, “One Toke Over the Line” grew to become far and away their greatest hit. However it additionally put them within the authorities’s crosshairs.

“We made Nixon’s ‘hate listing,’ which we held as a badge of honor and nonetheless do to at the present time, and the Vice President, Spiro Agnew, named us personally on nationwide TV one night time as “subversives to America’s youth,” Brewer recalled. “I imply, you possibly can’t purchase that type of publicity.”

Watch Brewer and Shipley Carry out ‘One Toke Over the Line’