Name Recognition:Atlanta or Houston (Arcade, Woodland: places to live, restaurants, best)

[Scott Summers]

Originally Posted by Kofi713

Haha, yeah I got you .

OK Young Mulla, I think I should close this out by saying that Scranton, PA has more name recognition than your beloved city and that was no joke.

[Kofi713]

Originally Posted by BravoFan

OK Young Mulla, I think I should close this out by saying that Scranton, PA has more name recognition than your beloved city and that was no joke.

It's because of The Office isn't it? I knew it. Damn.

[MB2]

Originally Posted by JPD

Yeah, because the mods are going to be FURIOUS when they find out that a thread has gone off-topic. That NEVER happens around here.

LOL....nope, I am not furious.
I would appreciate it though, if this thread could go BACK to the original topic, and back to the right content of discussions.
It's just heading into a "one lane" thing, of sort.
Back on topic please or, well, you guys know what will happen........

[AK123]

Originally Posted by JPD

Please name some examples. You're right, I can think of very few bands or musicians who claim to be specifically from Houston. Most Texas acts say they're from Texas or from Austin.

ZZ Top is supposedly from Houston. We've heard about the fairly obscure chopped and screwed scene. Who else?

Wham, Bam, Thank You MAMH, page 2 - Music - Houston Press - Houston Press

Let's compare the two city's musical heritages, shall we? Austin contributed nothing to the American music scene whatsoever until shortly after LSD arrived on the UT campus in 1963. Seriously. A couple of years later, the first truly innovative band emerged from Austin: the 13th Floor Elevators -- also the last truly innovative rock band to emerge from Austin, until the Butthole Surfers came along in about 1982. (For the record, the Elevators recorded for a Houston-based label.)

Willie Nelson moved to Austin from Nashville in 1972, and the Cosmic Cowboy movement gave Music City a scare in the early '70s (just as Pasadena's Urban Cowboy craze did later in the decade). Austin's city fathers set up Sixth Street, and Austin City Limits set about propagating the myth that every cool Texas artist perpetually frolicked alfresco under the Austin skyline.

The Vaughan Brothers-led, Caucasian-dominated blues scene had a run at the charts in the late '80s and early '90s. Along the way, semifamous bands like the Wild Seeds, the True Believers, Fastball, …Trail of Dead and Timbuk 3 came and went and came back again. The city started hosting South By Southwest in 1987 and recently built a statue of Stevie Ray Vaughan.

That's Austin's claim to fame, in a nutshell.

Houston, on the other hand, was already exporting blues singers to Chicago and New Orleans by the early 1920s. Houston's first blues star of the recording era, Fifth Ward native Sippie Wallace, cut her first sessions in Chicago in 1923. She went on to make records with King Oliver and Louis Armstrong and helped shape the style of the young Bonnie Raitt in the 1960s. Then there was Victoria Spivey, who accompanied Blind Lemon Jefferson in the early '20s, and after moving north, recorded and toured with Oliver, Armstrong and Lonnie Johnson.

By the 1930s, classic blues and jazz had evolved into swing, and Houston was again at the forefront. Houston's Milt Larkin Orchestra was one of the most popular bands of the day, every bit the equal of Count Basie's. Larkin's sidemen Arnett Cobb and Illinois Jacquet went on to earn fame in the band of Lionel Hampton, whose 1942 recording of "Flyin' Home" is credited by some rock historians as the first rock and roll song of all time. They base that claim on the "rockin'" sax solo, which was first performed by Cobb, but first recorded by Jacquet -- both of whom were Houstonians.

If you can't accept a song without a guitar as the first rock title, Houston has another pony in the race. According to no less an authority than the late New York Times pop critic Robert Palmer, the first rock song was not the commonly accepted 1951 recording of "Rocket 88" by Jackie Brenston/Ike Turner, but instead Houstonian Goree Carter's "Rock Awhile," which Carter recorded in the Bayou City in 1949. And you thought Memphis was the birthplace of rock.

Not far from Goree Carter's Fifth Ward home, another form of music was being cooked up: zydeco. In his definitive history of the genre, In the Kingdom of Zydeco, author Michael Tisserand likens Houston's effect on zydeco to Chicago's effect on rural Mississippi blues. This was the place where Louisiana Creoles first heard blues musicians, an experience that transformed their Acadian music from what was then called la-la. And you thought New Orleans was the birthplace of zydeco.

Meanwhile, the recording industry started to pick up, with Don Robey's Duke-Peacock label leading the way. The records he made in the late '50s and early '60s -- with voices like Bobby Bland and Junior Parker singing songs by Joe Medwick and Texas Johnny Brown to the backing of Joe Scott-led bands -- stand the test of time better than virtually everything else from that era.

During the late '50s and early '60s, Houston was also busy exporting R&B artists to L.A. Charles Brown, a primary influence on Ray Charles, spent the first two decades of his life in Texas City. Houston's Percy Mayfield ended up penning "Hit the Road Jack" and becoming a great American songwriter. Johnny Guitar Watson, one of the architects of funk, spent his first 15 years in the Third Ward with friends like Johnny Clyde Copeland, Albert Collins and Joe Guitar Hughes. Grady Gaines led Little Richard's band through its peak period, and later Calvin Owens filled the same role with B.B. King. Little Esther Phillips, Katie Webster, Amos Milburn, Big Walter…the list of R&B and blues stars could go on. Austin's blues "history" pales in comparison.

In late-'60s Houston, Lightnin' Hopkins took a young folkie named Townes Van Zandt under his wing. Guy Clark followed in Van Zandt's blues/country/folk wake, followed by Rodney Crowell, Steve Earle and Lyle Lovett. And it was out of that same Old Quarter/Liberty Hall scene that ZZ Top thundered. Most people outside of Texas think Austin produced all of those guys.

Yes, since then things have been a little slack for H-town -- save for acts like godfather of Dirty South rap Scarface and R&B platinum-sellers Destiny's Child. (It's a safe bet that Houston artists have outsold Austin artists hands down.) And, oh yeah, Pen and Pixel Graphics pretty much invented the bling aesthetic, and DJ Screw created a subgenre of rap…

1900 - Houston Music Museum

[AK123]

Originally Posted by JPD

I agree, which is why one of my points was/is that things such as music and the arts, or folk tales like the Loch Ness Moster, carry more weight when it comes to "name recognition" than something like the location of the Dell corporate office or population numbers.

Oh, and Michael Dell is originally from Houston too... went to Memorial High School, ended up in Austin to attend college.

[afonega1]

Originally Posted by JPD

Up there, but not good enough. I'm not talking about "overall". I'm talking specifics. No sports figure in Houston can touch Hank Aaron.

I put Ray Lewis in my list because he's a murderer, not because he's a sports star. Same goes for Michael Vick...dog murderer. Both of those guys brought international attention to Atlanta. Negative attention, but attention nonetheless.

Well theres Bobby Jones(golfing Legend who built Augusta National and the Masters tournament,Ty Cobb,John Heisman,former Georgia Tech coach and namesake of the Heisman trophy.Those are pretty heavy weights

[Kofi713]

Originally Posted by afonega1

Well theres Bobby Jones(golfing Legend who built Augusta National and the Masters tournament,Ty Cobb,John Heisman,former Georgia Tech coach and namesake of the Heisman trophy.Those are pretty heavy weights

Speaking of heavy weights....George Foreman.

He's from Houston.

[AK123]

Originally Posted by neil0311

What is Houston's claim to fame...other than the 60's space program? I think even Dallas would have more name recognition than Houston due to the 70's TV show.

Atlanta hosted the Olympics and was on the world stage during that time, and growth in business and population has resulted from that leap in status.

The space program didn't stop in the 60's... every shuttle mission still revolves around mission control in Houston.

I'd add the Texas Medical Center, the Port, and the energy industry. Not glamorous stuff, but very important from a national and international standpoint.

[Kofi713]

Atlanta wins in the Georgia section, but loses in the national section.

[coog78]

Atlanta international? That's one of the best jokes I've heard in a longtime.

And why is this in the Atlanta forum? Hoping for a certain response?
Houston has large international recognition and is dramatically more cosmopolitan.