BREWER AND SHIPLEY- " ONE TOKE OVER THE LINE "

AHHHH...The Seventies...The Early Seventies. April '71 to be exact, when One Toke Over The Line by Brewer and Shipley hit #10 on the Billboard Hot 100.

This was Brewer and Shipley's only Top Ten single, and they wrote it on a whim during a long break between sets in the coffee house where they regularly played. It was released in late 1970 on Tarkio, their third album. They didn't plan on releasing it at all originally, then didn't plan on releasing it as a single, then didn't even dream that it would become a hit...but it did. Trust me on this, 'One Toke Over The Line received massive air play....I heard it constantly on both WGH, Hampton Roads premiere AM Top 40 station, and then WLEE, Richmond’s Top 40 AM station, after I moved to the Richmond area.

The song was, of course, about smoking pot, and Bernard and Shipley readily admit to this fact. Hey, this was The Seventies! The song was awesome, catchy, made you want to sing along to it, and our parents, for the most part, had no clue what it was about. What could be better????

How 'bout if 'One Toke Over The Line', oh I dunno, also became the subject of one of the best and most hilarious illustrations of The Generation Gap known to modern man. Anyone remember Lawrence Welk?

What, you ask, does Lawrence Welk have to do with One Toke Over The Line? Who, the younger among you may ask, is Lawrence Welk in the first place. In a nutshell, Lawrence Welk was a Big Band Leader from the 40s who had a TV variety show that was extremely popular among the Older Generation...meaning our parents and grand parents. The show aired from 1955-1982 so he was doing something right. But his fans did not generally include teens. The average viewer age was somewhere around Fifty. The show came on at 7PM Saturday nights, and if anyone with 'Teen' suffixed to their age was watching it meant that (A) there was nothing to do and absolutely nothing else on, (B) you were too young to do anything anyway, ( C ) you were grounded and/or (D) your parents had forced you to watch under penalty of punishment too horrible to even contemplate. This show was so conservative that it made Donny and Marie look edgy (Whadaya Mean 'Who Were Donny and Marie????? ;) )

Again you ask, what did 'One Toke...' have to do with Lawrence Welk??? Simple...in The Seventies The Lawrence Welk Show was trying to draw younger viewers, and they added more modern music to the show...but NOT performed by the original artists.

Therefore, this catchy and very popular hit tune was performed on the show, and NOT by Brewer and Shipley, but by Gale and Dale.. That'd be Gale Farrell and Dick Dale, a duo who specialized in very conservative older music, and some country as I recall. Both are immensely talented, and Gale was and still is a lovely and talented lady...but songs about smoking weed were, well, not their usual genre. What happened you may ask? Simple...America's Favorite Big Band Leader thought it was a modern spiritual...he said as much immediately after they sang it. That's right. They introduced and sang one of the premier 'Getting High' anthems of The Seventies as...wait for it...a Gospel tune.

Did I mention this occurred the exact same week that Spiro T Agnew...then Vice President of The U.S...declared Brewer and Shipley and One Toke to be subversive elements that were undermining Our Youth? (Spiro, of course, was deeply embroiled in a little misunderstanding called Watergate very shortly thereafter as we may recall)

Generation gap or no generation gap, there HAD to have been someone on that show, be it talent, production staff, or Network, who knew what a 'Toke' actually was and what the song was actually about. Ya know some of the Crew was sniggering to themselves after it happened. There were rumors that Gale AND Dale actually knew exactly what they were singing about, and thought it hilarious themselves. It became one of the funnier 'Generation Gap' Moments.

It gave Brewer and Shipley, and 'One Toke...' publicity that was priceless of course. And as a side note... neither of them got to see a tape of the 'Lawrence Welk' performance until 2007, when a video hit YouTube.

So...Enjoy! 'One Toke Over The Line by Brewer and Shipley.

And as a Bonus...One Toke Over The Line performed on Lawrence Welk by Gale and Dale. Cue the Champagne bubbles!