I’m hardly here for long, so here goes:
1. Author: There’s Sherwood Anderson and William Dean Howells and Toni Morrison; I’ll pick the latter though none are true favorites of mine.
2. Director: Wes Craven remains underrated; I still like his The Serpent and the Rainbow, among others. I can’t think of a notable movie set in Ohio, can you?
3. Painter: George Bellows’s reputation has shot up in the last twenty years; here’s an unusual Bellows print. I very much like the botanical paintings and prints of Jim Dine, although I can’t find a good one on-line.
4. Popular music: I can’t think of much…Boz Scaggs doesn’t count nor does Peter Frampton. Lonnie Mack’s The Wham of That Memphis Man! is one of the least known great albums. Doris Day is a very good singer and do see Pillow Talk if you don’t already know it.
5. Jazz: There is Art Tatum, especially the early Capitol work, not so much the later Pablo recordings. Billy Strayhorn was often behind the best Duke Ellington arrangements.
6. Classical music recording: George Szell’s Beethoven’s 3rd remains a landmark recording, or try his Piano Concerti set with Leon Fleisher.
7. Philosopher: Willard van Orman Quine. most of all Word and Object. Now that’s a favorite.
8. Sculptor: Maya Lin did the Vietnam Memorial though she hasn’t had much of a second act.
The bottom line: The achievement from this state is remarkably well-distributed across different artistic fields and genres. Why? Is it because the state has so many different cities of at least middling size? Or is it because the state straddles the East and the Midwest? Sadly there is no Cincinnati chili for me this time.
Addendum: Angus of Ohio comments.
Popular Music: Dean Martin
Country Music: Dwight Yoakam (born KY, raised in Columbus)
Major League is certainly notable. Each home game is, of course, set in Cleveland.
Note that most of the artists named above came FROM Ohio, just like T. S. Elliot was from Missouri.
George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra are standouts on this list. How did a steel town on Lake Erie attract one on the greatest classical musicians of the twentieth century and provide him with the conditions to do his greatest work, leaving a legacy that lives on in the work of the Orchestra and the musical culture of Northern Ohio to this day? Awesome.
Tommy Boy starts in Ohio.
There’s also Gummo, if you want something more artsy.
Of course, what could be more artsy than a Farley/Spade vehicle?
Popular music: Guided by Voices is from Dayton.
http://intelligenttravel.typepad.com/it/2008/07/here-we-are-hal.html
For movies shot in Ohio.
A Christmas Story was shot in Cleveland, but set in Indiana. The street they lived in was called Cleveland Street.
Parts of Spiderman 3 were shot in Cleveland downtown as well..
The prison from Shawshank Redemption is in Ohio, I believe.
“Billy Strayhorn was often behind the best Duke Ellington arrangements.”
The statement is virtually meaningless and hella ill-informed, but I’ll react to what I think was the intended meaning–some kind of sideways swipe at Ellington.
Best stick to econ, Tyler.
Movies: Heathers is set in Ohio.
Jazz: Jon Hendricks is from Toledo, and is back teaching at the University of Toledo these days.
Cartoonists: I know, not a category mentioned above, but there are several notable cartoonists living in Ohio, including Bill Watterson (Calvin and Hobbes), Tom Batiuk (Funky Winkerbean, Crankshaft), and Jeff Smith (Bone).
Dan,
Maine.
American Splendor and second Major League.
How about comedians? From Bob Hope to Drew Carey.
Popular music: Props to whoever mentioned Devo and Chrissie Hynde. Also worth mentioning Trent Reznor of NIN, Maynard James Keenan of Tool and Brian Warner aka Marilyn Manson. Having lived in (and escaped from) the OhWhyOh suburbs I can tell you that it makes a lot of sense that so much repressed angry music comes out of that area.
A couple tracks on Randy Newman’s album Sail Away come to mind: “Burn On” (“There’s a red moon rising on the Cuyahoga River”), and “Dayton Ohio-1903.”
“How did a steel town on Lake Erie attract one on the greatest classical musicians of the twentieth century and provide him with the conditions to do his greatest work, leaving a legacy that lives on in the work of the Orchestra and the musical culture of Northern Ohio to this day? Awesome.”
The answer to that one is complicated, but here’s the parts with which I’m familiar. Cleveland had a great orchestra before Szell– good orchestras always seem to arise in midwestern cities with many German immigrants (Cincinnati and St. Louis are two more). Further, Cleveland was more than just a steel town on lake Erie- in its day, it was one of the country’s great cities and an economic powerhouse. Also, Szell, for all his genius, was a difficult man to work with in many respects, and in a way Cleveland saved him from a second-rate career. Once established in Cleveland, though, Szell could set about implementing his vision of a virtuoso orchestra that he could control with (my favorite phrase regarding Szell) “whiplash precision.”
My favorite Szell recordings are of the Wagner bleeding chunks– no other recordings, EVER, contained the heady mix of driving passion and x-ray vision into each part. I’ve wondered whether Wagner would approve, though, given the conventional wisdom that he DIDN’T intend for some of the parts to be heard– kind of a Phil Spector before his time.
Being from Ohio (Cleveland) I might have a bit of home state pride but I’ve always been amazed at how much talent has come from the state. I think it is a mix of (forgive me for dipping into cliche) salt of the earth people, colleges, urban centers with art and cultural outlets, and proximity to the East coast. And there’s just enough provinicialism for people (artists) to rebel against and have the desire to succeed and escape from it.
The National are from Cincinnati, though I think they’ve been based in New York for most of their musical lifetimes. They’re very good, check them out.
I grew up in Ohio and lived in Cleveland, went to CWRU. The public perception of Cleveland is indeed extremely out of whack. I have since lived in Europe, So.Cal, and now NJ suburbs, and have to say that I really do miss Clevlenad a lot (except the winter). There are so many cultural opportunties, people are generally laid back, and the cost of living is reasonable. The current problem as I see it is lack of career opportunties. I am not sure what is going on out there but NE Ohio seems to now be very business unfriendly, and the region has not been able to make the transition from the old world (steel, automobiles, chemicals, etc) to the new world (biotech, IT, finance, etc).
I will be back this fall though for the Brownies, can’t fing wait…
Ohio has a lot of great schools, ranging from the progressive Oberlin to conservative Miami. The state is also unique for its diversity of ideas and lifestyles, with ethnic populations thriving still in Cleveland’s Slavic village or Little Italy, or Jewish neighborhoods in Cleveland Heights; a large homosexual population in Lakewood, an increasingly modern city in Columbus…. northeast Ohio is fairly liberal, has a rich history and culture, while southeast Ohio is practically West Virginia. There are at least four different accents within the state itself, and the rural areas differ dramatically from the urban zones. There is a reason Ohio is always the swing state, and I’m proud of our moderation, humility, and honesty…I think it is the people that make Ohio special.
Hello?!?!?
A little love for the Ohio Players, please!
Pure Prairie League – Craig Fuller
The McCoys (Hang on Sloopy)
Roy Rogers
Frank Duveneck (nee Decker)the painter)
Alan Eckert for author. Wrote the best frontier histories around.
Surely there must be questions to which “WKRP” and “Klinger and the Toledo Mud Hens” would be the correct answers.
Strayhorn was born in Ohio, but the family moved when he was young. All his musical training took place in Pittsburgh. He was fortunate to get to go to George Westinghouse High School, which was personally endowed by the mogul.
He met Ellington at a nightclub owned by the town’s most prosperous black businessman (he also owned the Pittsburgh baseball entry in the Negro League).
Ellington had Billy audition for him backstage between shows. He first played something that Ellington had just performed, as the Duke did it. Then he improvised a new arrangement on the spot.
Ellington went out and got one of his most trusted musicians (Johnny Hodges, iirc) brought him to Billy and asked him to do the same thing with another tune that had just been performed. He did it again, and Ellington told him he wanted him in his organization, but he didn’t know exactly what position he’d fill.
At a later meeting, Duke wrote out instructions on how to get to his apartment in Harlem for Billy. He took those home and set them to music. One of the lines in those instructions was, ‘Take the A Train’.
It’s no swipe at Ellington to give credit to Strayhorn. He recognized his genius and tapped it.
popular music – Nine Inch Nails are from Cleveland and Gil Mantera’s Party dream is from Youngstown
Dave Chappelle lives in Ohio also
In response to John Mark R.’s comment:
Cleveland, oft maligned as the “Mistake on the Lake”, is an incubator of arts and culture because of it’s ties to the famous (or infamous) American Industrialists of the early 1900′s. Massive fortunes were made and lost by the original pioneers of globalization, who coordinated their empires from Cleveland’s Euclid Ave… then known as Millionaire’s Row. These outsized fortunes gave birth to the concept of philanthropy as a means to mold social values… they also allowed businessmen the time to experiment with money-making schemes, the most successful being the development of suburbs – the concept of which was pioneered on the east side of Cleveland before the Great Depression, and which has risen to dominate the American landscape… devouring the productive capacity that was itself born of the minds of Cleveland industrialists.
Maybe it’s the water, maybe it’s the weather, who can say… but there’s something special about Cleveland.
But wait, there’s more –
Alan Freed, Neil Armstrong, Carl Stokes, Thomas Edison, …
http://www.50states.com/bio/ohio.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_from_Ohio
The Pagans, from Cleveland, were/are one of the most underrated punk bands of all time.
And seriously. How can you forget Devo?
Oh, come on! The Dead Boys! They were an offshoot of Rocket from the Tombs, which also gave us Pere Ubu.
The Isley brothers (Cincinnati) and Bone Thugs N Harmony (Cleveland).
Authors: Paul Lawrence Dunbar
Generals: US Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, probably a few others …
Inventors: Orville and Wilbur Wright
But this is nonsensical. Ohio was a fairly large state in terms of geography from 1803 until the Western states were organized; it had a large population relatively speaking until fairly late in the 20th century. It’s hardly surprising to find that a state which loomed so large in demographic terms contributed so heavily to the national culture.
Well, evidentally it is. But while Ohio’s former importance looks strange to Americans of 2008, in say 1958 it looked quite reasonable to most folk.
If you REALLY want to play this kind of game, start counting significant cultural contributers from Indiana…..
– mike (from Piqua, Springfield, and Dayton) shupp
I was gonna say Dead Boys but they’re usually considered NY rather than Ohio. Unjustly but still. So it’s an understandable omission. But props to TGGP none the less.
Music:I can’t believe someone already mentioned Gil Mantera.
Girl Talk, whose doing really interesting things even from an economic standpoint, is from Ohio.
Sculpture: Viktor Schreckengost
His jazz bowls, toys and industrial design generally were revolutionary.
Large backyards.
Neil Young’s 1970 protest song ‘Ohio’
Movies set in Ohio: The ‘Oh’ in Ohio
“Popular music: I can’t think of much…Boz Scaggs doesn’t count nor does Peter Frampton.”
Blasphemy! Of course, Frampton shouldn’t count since he was born in Beckenham, Kent, England.
Perhaps, more to your taste, you can take comfort in knowing that Frankie Yankovic permanently resides in Ohio.
Cedar Point! Greatest roller coaster park in the world
John Sayles filmed part of “Eight Men Out” and all of “City of Hope” in Cincinnati. Also made in Cincinnati: “Little Man Tate” and “Rage in Harlem.” And part of the immortal “Take This Job and Shove It.”
The Battle for Shaker Heights… Halle Berry All Jim Jarmush films are classics and most have at least one reference to Northeast Ohio.
How did anyone write this list without picking a favorite president from Ohio? Any takers? Harrison? Taft?
Also worth mentioning Trent Reznor of NIN, Maynard James Keenan of Tool and Brian Warner aka Marilyn Manson. Having lived in the OhWhyOh suburbs I can tell you that it makes a lot of sense that so much repressed angry music comes out of that area.
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