Of all the songs Janis Joplin recorded in her brief, but spectacular career, one of the best-known and most fondly remembered is “Mercedes Benz.”

Few remember now that Janis was also interested in poetry and often attended poetry readings. Her tongue-in-cheek paean to consumerism began as a quick poetry jam between her and songwriter Bob Neuwirth in a bar in Port Chester, NY. They built their short poem around a line written by poet Mike McClure.

About an hour after the poem was completed, she performed it live during her show that night at the Capitol Theater in Port Chester, inventing an acapella melody on the spot.

It was promptly forgotten until she had finished recording her second solo album, “Pearl.” With the pressure of the major session work behind her, Joplin stepped to a microphone while the tapes were still rolling and announced she was about to sing “a song of great social and political import.”

She quickly ran through her little “Mercedes Benz” performance. One take. She also recorded a quick birthday message to John Lennon that included her rendition of Roy Rogers’ theme song, “Happy Trails.” Those would be the last two songs she ever recorded.

Only three days later, she would be dead of a drug overdose.

When Columbia released “Pearl” posthumously, producer Paul A. Rothchild decided to include “Mercedes Benz.”

The song quickly caught the fancy of FM deejays. Radio listeners also fell in love with the tune.

Today it has been covered by more than 30 other recording acts.

(And yes, we know the car in the photo is a Porsche! It belonged to Janis. She did not own a Mercedes-Benz.")

Repair shops have a bad reputation. One reason why is most of us don’t really know much about our vehicles. When a repair person tells us our framastat and carburatic overgloid needs replacement, we just nod and sign the repair order.

One of the most common cons is the Oil Change Add-Ons: Many repair shops advertise a very low price on oil changes. Once they get your car in their service bay, they’ll tell you about all the other things you need – like a new air filter or a coolant flush. Unless you know and trust your repair shop, treat these tactics with skepticism, especially if your car has been running just fine.

BTW – Many of the coolants used in today’s vehicles are good for 100,000 miles.

Many us find sleeping all the way through the night more of a challenge than we did a few years ago.

Here are some of the most common cause…and cures!

1. Eating Too Close to Bedtime – And eating the wrong kind of foods (especially those that are high in sugar) can have you waking up during the night. Your body is spending too much energy trying to digest and that will keep you awake

Cure: Avoid eating food within 3 hours of bedtime. Also, when you d have your evening meal, go for fruits veggies, fish and nuts.

2. Medicine – Whether it’s prescription drugs o0r over-the-counter medication, many of them can interfere with a good night’s sleep. Believe it or not, over the counter sleeping pills can also interfere with sleep when they’re used habitually instead of every once and awhile.

Cure: Check with you doctor. Let him or her know the medication you take and see if they may a cause and what you might do as an alternative.

3. Back Pain – Many of us have it and as we move about in our sleep, the pain can wake us up.

Cure: Try using massage, heat or even acupuncture as ways to treat back pain. There is also some research that shows drinking tart cherry juice twice a day might reduce pain and increase sleep by as much as 84 minutes a night.

4. Undiagnosed Sleep Apnea – Snoring is only one of the symptoms of sleep apnea. So lack of snoring doesn’t mean you’re in the clear. The biggest symptom is being very tired during the day.

Cure: Talk to your doctor. Getting the correct diagnosis is the first step. Then he or she can recommend the remedy that may be best for you.

Good news for guys with nagging wives. A recent study showed, men who are married to women who nag them are less likely to develop diabetes.

Sorry guys. The same study showed women with nagging husbands received no health benefits.

Besides the obvious sexism, implying single women were somehow going ketchup-less...do you find anything, oh, somewhat suggestive about the woman's pose and what she's running her finger over?

Planning on hitting the road this summer? You may be able to save money on your transportation if you’re willing to a little searching.

There are companies that need to move vehicles (even RVs) from one location to another. Now, these are one-way trips, so you may have to find other ways to get yourself back home, but it’s worth investigating.

Some sites you may want to visit:
transfercarus.com
thriftynomads.com
imoova.com

Important legal stuff: BoomtownAmerica.com is not affiliated with nor does it endorse any of these websites. We advise you check things out for yourself and as always, make sure you read the fine print or consult with an expert before you enter into any agreement.

In 1968, Elvis Presley taped a "Comeback Special" for television that proved to be a huge success and helped restore him to popularity, but it almost never got made.

Elvis was convinced that he didn't need to "come back;" he was still "the King."

So TV producer Steve Binder took Elvis out to Sunset Boulevard. When absolutely nobody recognized him, Elvis realized he did, indeed, need to "come back" and so agreed to make the TV show that would propel the rest of his career.

In the late 1960’s Establishment Hollywood was near panic. All of the old rules about making and marketing movies seemed to be going out the window.

While long-time stars like Gregory Peck and Bob Hope were no longer packing ‘em in, young upstarts like Mike Nichols (The Graduate) and Warren Beatty (Bonnie and Clyde) were turning out blockbusters that their studios frankly thought should be playing the low rent drive-in circuit.

So in 1969, what did Hollywood think was a “can’t-miss” idea? Take a Broadway musical from 1951(!) and cast Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin(!!) as the singing leads!

The result is a spectacular mess of a film, Paint Your Wagon.

The story takes place during the Gold Rush days of 19^th Century California. Casting Eastwood and Marvin makes sense for a Western movie, but a musical Western? And, no, they didn’t dub them. That’s really Eastwood and Marvin attempting to carry a tune. Eastwood at least has a passable, if very thin, singing voice. But Marvin? It’s like listening to the croaking a frog with laryngitis!

Now, the original Broadway musical revolved around prospector Ben Rumson and his teen-age daughter Jennifer. Jennifer falls for a young Mexican prospector while Rumson buys a wife off a traveling Mormon. Most of the musical revolves around the then-controversial “inter-racial romance” between the youngsters.

In the movie, there is no daughter. No Mexican prospector either. Instead, they created a whole new character, a partner for Rumson named – wait for it – “Pardner.” Clever, right?

Instead of an inter-racial romance, we get a mange a trios with Rumson’s Mormon wife turning the tables and taking two husbands (Rumson and Pardner).

The musical’s biggest number was “They Call the Wind Mariah.” On Broadway, the song was introduced after some business about the miners being wandering loners who often had only wind, rain and fire as companions (hence their tendency to call the rain “Tess,” the fire “Joe” and the wind – yeah, “Mariah”).

In the movie, the song just comes out of nowhere, being sung by a character that hasn’t even been introduced in the film yet. (He turns out to be the guy who will eventually own the saloon and cathouse in the boomtown the Gold Rush creates.) He’s played by Harve Presnell, who, thankfully, has a professional singing voice. Although this big number is diminished somewhat when you’re busy thinking, “Who the heck is this guy and why is he singing about naming the wind Mariah?”

Actually, most of the songs seem to come out of nowhere and the contrast between Lerner & Lowe’s Broadway pop and the filmmaker’s attempt to create a realistic, gritty Western setting is jarring.

Marvin plays Rumson, Eastwood plays Pardner and Jean Seberg plays the Mormon wife, Elizabeth. Seberg, at least, had the good sense to have her singing voice dubbed by a professional. The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band also shows up early in the film. Why? I don’t know.

Paint Your Wagon cost $20 million to make (very expensive in 1969 dollars). It grossed $31 million, which - when you factor in marketing costs and splits with the movie theaters - means the film probably lost money for Paramount Pictures. But they really should have known better.

Popular lore also has it that in many of Marvin’s drunk scenes, he wasn’t acting. He really was drunk.

If you want to watch Clint Eastwood star in a musical, be my guest. But a word of additional warning. The film has a running time close to 3 hours, so make sure you take a bathroom break before you start watching this.