With Janis Joplin and poet Michael McClure, Neuwirth co-wrote the song "Mercedes Benz" in August 1970, while improvising during a drinking session at a bar in Port Chester, New York.

[1][3][4] He scribbled the lyrics onto a napkin, which Joplin sang at her Capitol Theatre show that same night and then recorded a cappella just three days before she died.

[4][5] Colin Irwin wrote:Painter, road manager, sidekick, confidante, henchman, poet, underground cult hero, womanizer, party organizer, self-appointed king of cool, and baiter-in-chief of Baez, Donovan, and any other unfortunate who wound up in the line of fire of his sledgehammer jibes, Neuwirth went on to become a film-maker and a credible singer-songwriter in his own right, co-writing the wonderful "Mercedes Benz" with his friend Janis Joplin.

[2] Although it included guest artists such as Kris Kristofferson, Booker T. Jones, Rita Coolidge, Chris Hillman, Cass Elliot, Dusty Springfield, Don Everly, Richie Furay, and Iain Matthews,[7] it was not commercially successful,[5] in part because he declined to publicize it extensively.

[3] While embarking on a national tour of the U.S., he recorded his next solo album, Look Up (1996), at the residences of friends such as Patti Smith, Bernie Leadon, and Elliott Murphy.

[3] Neuwirth was involved in concerts at a church in Brooklyn and the Royal Festival Hall in 1999, which were organized by Hal Willner as a tribute to the Anthology of American Folk Music released almost 50 years before.

[4] A year later, Neuwirth produced the documentary Down from the Mountain, with Pennebaker as one of the directors and highlighting artists whose music was included in O Brother, Where Art Thou?

[1] He carried on painting throughout this time at a studio in the Meatpacking District in New York,[4] and identified Jackson Pollock as his main inspiration that guided Neuwirth's colourful and abstract style.