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Tommy Smothers and his brother, Dick, started out as a serious musical act that morphed into one of 20th century’s most successful comedy teams.

In the '60s, they were the eponymous stars of the Sunday night TV variety show “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour." In this clip from the show, Tommy performs yo-yo tricks following his brother's commands. And here's a video from 1988 when they played with the Boston Pops. Both are fun, and the comments are good too. Here's one of them: 'Tommy was a class act. The YoYo Man......"Mom always liked you best" and so much more. Thanks for all the laughs Tommy. Rest In Peace.'

The picture in the chapters, credited to CBS Television, is a 1967 cropped photo available on commons.wikimedia.org. It shows Tommy performing on the brothers' show. The photo does not include who he was performing with — his brother and their guest, Judy Collins.

Also in the chapters, you can go right to the tribute by skipping my intro; feel free to skip my closing remarks too. Both are there to provide context for those who haven't listened to the other tributes.

Sheldon Zoldan, a longtime writer and editor, wrote and recorded this tribute and the others in the series. He also writes a Song of the Day story that he sends by email to a list of subscribers. To get on his subscriber list, email shzoldan@comcast.net with the subject line ADD ME TO SOTD.

Audio engineer/musician Mike Villegas edited all the audio for this series. Hope you enjoy these intriguing glimpses into the lives of the people who made some of the music we love.

This is Kate Jones. Thank you for listening to my show, available on YouTube and in various podcast directories including Apple, Spotify and Audible.