Can’t remember when I first heard this song. And I probably didn’t know what a Mercedes-Benz was, but I did like the song and singer. I saw her album cover when Janis Joplin was with Big Brother and the Holding Company and Wow! I had never heard 
anything like her.
Janis was born in 1943 in Port Authur, Texas. She got her started listening to blues artists, Ledbelly and Big Mama Thornton. She did not fit in in high school and was frequently taunted and called names. Pretty bleak childhood for Janis.
She broke out of Texas and headed for San Francisco. She lived large and was a heavy drinker and drug user. Her favorite drink was Southern Comfort. She got down to skin and bones due to her lifestyle and her friends threw her a party to get her back home. Once there, she changed her lifestyle, enrolled in college, and quit drugs.
Later, she was ‘recruited’ by the manager of a group known as Big Brother and the Holding Company. She continued to avoid drug use. The group later moved into a house with The Grateful Dead and she relapsed into drug use. She briefly moved in with Country Joe McDonald of Country Joe and the Fish. It was Big Brother’s second album, Cheap Thrills that first made her place in rock ‘n roll history.
Like many of her genre and generation, she burned herself out, but not before leaving plenty of good music behind to be remembered for……
“Prove that you love me and buy the next round……..”
Janis Joplin…A Real Texas original.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Good Lord! That’s worse than rap. No tune, melody, or rhythm anywhere.
Warthog, you are either too old or too young to have lived in the 60’s. My friend Gael Montana used to say: “If you remember Austin in the 60’s you weren’t really there”.
In 1965 or 1966 we had gone to the 11th Door at 11th and Red River in Austin to see Lightnin’ Hopkins. After the first set one of my friends invited Lightnin’ over to our table to drink a little gin; and that being the Lighnin’ man’s drink of choice he came over, sat down, said his hello’s to all present and turned up Jimmy’s bottle of gin for about 83 seconds without taking a breath. And then he said ya’ll need to hear this “little gal” that’s playin’ between sets; she’s really gonna be somethin’. And, out came Janis Joplin. The hair on the back of my head is raised right now, just like it was 55 years ago. Lightnin’ wasn’t wrong — that little gal was really somethin’.
Wow! What a story and what a memory to have. And Thanks ‘Law West of the Guadalupe’ for sharing that with all of us. I was in the Austin area in the late ’60’s, and your assessment is correct. Wish I could have seen Janis in person back then.
Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.
-Kris Kristopherson
Makes my head hurt trying to figure out that quotation, but I always liked Janis’s version of “Me and Bobby McGee”. Like a lot of poetry, you can’t overthink it.