What are you listening to now?
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Phylo
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Dolly Parton
source: ChatGBP
But there's an important distinction
If you ask “Who is America's most beloved country & western singer?”, I'd probably say:
Dolly Parton
If you ask ....
Her death makes the scale of American affection for her particularly apparent. She wasn't merely a successful country singer; she was regarded as one of America's most beloved personalities, with an unusually broad appeal across generations, regions and political backgrounds.
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source: Phylo
Matters of Death
While respecting - within limits - all religions and philosophies as of cultural and societal interest, I retain freedom of subservience from all - no exception.
With regards the so the called dead, I have since birth, when occasion should warrant, found channels of communications readily open.
Setting aside the quick-buck charlatans*, the deluded**, the clickbait cons and bs stories**—and, of course, the offended—from real-life experience, I rely on my own experiences and draw my own conclusion in totally independent of any religious philosophy and authority.
* As with coding I have no interest in commission solicitations.
** A Brazilian psychic has gone viral after claiming that aliens will interrupt the 2026 FIFA World Cup match between Brazil and Scotland.
Example - one of a lifetime of incidents:
When I was a teenager with a budding and formulating wider interest in world affairs I happened to have a number of talks with an old man: A one leg amputee and father of my sister's BF and later husband. I found the house environment hygiene somewhat unpleasant but the talks and the old man fascinated me. They kept a number of English bull dogs that were allowed in the house - and, by gad, these fecker's stank!
As an amputee, the old man spent a large amount of his time in his favourite chair, which was, on too many occasions, kept company by one or more of these sleeping stink bombs - they also had a tendency to pass gas.
Perhaps an anticlimax: In short, olfactory distractions aside, it was the cold war era and everyone was banging on about Soviet Russia. The banging on is legion - enough said.
China was an entity of little interest - no one gave China a second though. Yet, this old man, was continuously banging of about China - claiming that mighty Soviet Russia would fall (an unthinkable at the time) and be eclipsed by China which would become a world dominant economic giant. The depth of his dialog was against the grain and off the beaten track but fodder to my teenage inquiring mind.
Suffice to say, history has proven his foretasted assertions to be astoundingly accurate.
Years later in the prime of my life, well after the old man had passed on, while about daily business I had to stop the vehicle I was driving due to obstruction of and as courtesy to a particularly long funeral procession of vehicles intercepting my path of travel.
While waiting out this funeral delay I suddenly became aware of the deceased old man's presence in the front passenger seat next to me. I cannot recall his exact opening dialog but it was on the lines of, in a manner of casual matter of fact with a hint of amusement, "Yep ! been there, done that, got the T shirt."
At this time in the history of my life I had long sprung from the nest, travelled, been to the moon and back in a manner of speaking, and long lived in a different city from my sister. The upshot being that I was not privy or inclined to keep tabs of who in the family zoo was still in the zoo or who had escaped into the big blue beyond.
The deceased old man proceeded to update me to some extent on my wider family tab keeping neglects. My sister's husband was the youngest of five brothers of whom all four of the older had died early in life - well before their statistical time. One of the older brothers was married to my Aunt and one day, while not yet in the prime life, keeled over with a heart attack. And that was that. So quite in the family sort of thing and thus closer to the bone for my sister's husband. As last man - the mind tends to ask questions. Who's next ?
According to the old man, my sister's husband, his only surviving son, was obsessively consumed that he next on the block; that he was also destined to cop the lot, well before his time. The old man assured me that my sister's husband would not suffer the same fate as the four older brothers and would live well into the statistical norm. This he emphasised to me by way of illustration in the form of his only surviving son driving a two wheel horse driven race buggy/cart known in the UK as a sulky.
The sister's husband, brothers and father were big into football and (responsible) horse racing. Common interests tent to unite family members and my recollected memories are of brotherly family harmony and a tolerance for stinking British bull dogs. So the the sulky analogy was fitting)
The two wheel racing buggy (sulky) continues well down the rat race track - down, down the track of life it goes until eventually in the far distance it finally turns off the tract and disappears out the scene. The intended inference I interpret as: statistical longevity and finally the inevitable - disappearance from physical life. One cycles of expression disappearing as it merge into a new cycle of expression.
Suddenly my vehicle cab erupted in jubilation and celebrations with a visual conference like communication of other deceased entities. One hell of a party was going down.
I long distanced phoned my sister for input, confirmation or rebuttal.
Sister's input - surprise and respite: Yes ! - she was becoming seriously concerned and alarmed. Her husband's growing fear that he would die well before his time was becoming an intrusive disruption to the marriage. In short, she was at odds with how to deal with his obsessive fear of early death.
She would relay my described communication and other omitted personal information to him for consideration.
Regarding the party celebrations she could not initially put her finger on any of it - no birthdays or celebrations were imminent. After some general catch up chit-chat she suddenly stopped me short, interrupting with the proverbial 'F' explicit. "F - it just hit me like a ton of bricks - when did this happen ?" she demanded". I gave her the day and date of the incident. "Hang on - it just struck me - I'm going to check something - hang on." She returns excitedly, "That's the day (day and month date) he died - F! - that's what the party is all about. It's his pass-over birthday - its his death birthday!" She was close to the old man and both exited and taken aback. No doubt she was also pleased with this revelation - it would add credibility to my communication and sit well with her husband.
I had missed the obvious that I was not privy to.
source: ChatGpt
If you mean Barbra Streisand and Louis Armstrong in Hello, Dolly! (1969), I think the evidence points much more toward genuine musical rapport than a purely manufactured or exploitative relationship—but there is an important qualification: the film itself absolutely uses Armstrong in a commercially calculated way.
The Louis Armstrong House Museum specifically notes the playful interaction: Streisand scats while Armstrong sings the melody, and she imitates his vocal mannerisms.
That matters because Armstrong's style was extremely difficult to fake convincingly. Streisand was a technically formidable singer, but she doesn't try to overpower him or turn him into a conventional duet partner. She leaves space for Armstrong's personality.
Contemporary critic Pauline Kael's reaction is especially interesting. The New Yorker described Streisand's work with Armstrong as being done with "pure love"—not exactly the language you'd expect from someone seeing a coldly calculated studio pairing.
Armstrong's presence wasn't primarily motivated by the story. He was brought into the movie because "Hello, Dolly!" was already identified with Louis Armstrong. His 1964 recording had been a huge hit and had reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
So Hollywood effectively had this situation:
And there's an even more interesting racial/cultural dimension. A scholarly analysis of the sequence argues that Armstrong's presence helped legitimize Streisand's position as the new cinematic Dolly, while the scene symbolically brings together two very different American musical traditions—Jewish-American popular singing and African-American jazz.
So yes: the studio was using Louis Armstrong.
But that's not necessarily the same thing as Streisand personally exploiting Louis Armstrong.
The Louis Armstrong House Museum has preserved recordings from the period surrounding the filming. Armstrong's own tapes actually include his Hello, Dolly! material with Streisand, and in one later compilation he specifically retained the duet with Streisand while removing other material from the recording.
That's quite suggestive.
If Armstrong had regarded the encounter as humiliating, purely transactional, or something imposed upon him, you'd be less likely to find him preserving and revisiting the material himself.
There's also an amusing contemporary telegram from the Hello, Dolly! set. Armstrong was sending his friends his little novelty photographs and talking about Streisand; the Louis Armstrong House Museum describes the material as containing "nice things about Barbra Streisand and the making of Dolly."
And Armstrong's surviving off-camera recordings give us something the finished movie can't: Armstrong behaving as himself around people. The museum's material from this period depicts him joking, teasing, and interacting with friends rather than behaving like somebody who felt intimidated by the production.
source: ChatGBP
But there's an important distinction
If you ask “Who is America's most beloved country & western singer?”, I'd probably say:
If you ask ....
Her death makes the scale of American affection for her particularly apparent. She wasn't merely a successful country singer; she was regarded as one of America's most beloved personalities, with an unusually broad appeal across generations, regions and political backgrounds.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
source: Phylo
Matters of Death
While respecting - within limits - all religions and philosophies as of cultural and societal interest, I retain freedom of subservience from all - no exception.
With regards the so the called dead, I have since birth, when occasion should warrant, found channels of communications readily open.
Setting aside the quick-buck charlatans*, the deluded**, the clickbait cons and bs stories**—and, of course, the offended—from real-life experience, I rely on my own experiences and draw my own conclusion in totally independent of any religious philosophy and authority.
* As with coding I have no interest in commission solicitations.
** A Brazilian psychic has gone viral after claiming that aliens will interrupt the 2026 FIFA World Cup match between Brazil and Scotland.
Example - one of a lifetime of incidents:
When I was a teenager with a budding and formulating wider interest in world affairs I happened to have a number of talks with an old man: A one leg amputee and father of my sister's BF and later husband. I found the house environment hygiene somewhat unpleasant but the talks and the old man fascinated me. They kept a number of English bull dogs that were allowed in the house - and, by gad, these fecker's stank!
As an amputee, the old man spent a large amount of his time in his favourite chair, which was, on too many occasions, kept company by one or more of these sleeping stink bombs - they also had a tendency to pass gas.
Perhaps an anticlimax: In short, olfactory distractions aside, it was the cold war era and everyone was banging on about Soviet Russia. The banging on is legion - enough said.
China was an entity of little interest - no one gave China a second though. Yet, this old man, was continuously banging of about China - claiming that mighty Soviet Russia would fall (an unthinkable at the time) and be eclipsed by China which would become a world dominant economic giant. The depth of his dialog was against the grain and off the beaten track but fodder to my teenage inquiring mind.
Suffice to say, history has proven his foretasted assertions to be astoundingly accurate.
Years later in the prime of my life, well after the old man had passed on, while about daily business I had to stop the vehicle I was driving due to obstruction of and as courtesy to a particularly long funeral procession of vehicles intercepting my path of travel.
While waiting out this funeral delay I suddenly became aware of the deceased old man's presence in the front passenger seat next to me. I cannot recall his exact opening dialog but it was on the lines of, in a manner of casual matter of fact with a hint of amusement, "Yep ! been there, done that, got the T shirt."
At this time in the history of my life I had long sprung from the nest, travelled, been to the moon and back in a manner of speaking, and long lived in a different city from my sister. The upshot being that I was not privy or inclined to keep tabs of who in the family zoo was still in the zoo or who had escaped into the big blue beyond.
The deceased old man proceeded to update me to some extent on my wider family tab keeping neglects. My sister's husband was the youngest of five brothers of whom all four of the older had died early in life - well before their statistical time. One of the older brothers was married to my Aunt and one day, while not yet in the prime life, keeled over with a heart attack. And that was that. So quite in the family sort of thing and thus closer to the bone for my sister's husband. As last man - the mind tends to ask questions. Who's next ?
According to the old man, my sister's husband, his only surviving son, was obsessively consumed that he next on the block; that he was also destined to cop the lot, well before his time. The old man assured me that my sister's husband would not suffer the same fate as the four older brothers and would live well into the statistical norm. This he emphasised to me by way of illustration in the form of his only surviving son driving a two wheel horse driven race buggy/cart known in the UK as a sulky.
The sister's husband, brothers and father were big into football and (responsible) horse racing. Common interests tent to unite family members and my recollected memories are of brotherly family harmony and a tolerance for stinking British bull dogs. So the the sulky analogy was fitting)
The two wheel racing buggy (sulky) continues well down the rat race track - down, down the track of life it goes until eventually in the far distance it finally turns off the tract and disappears out the scene. The intended inference I interpret as: statistical longevity and finally the inevitable - disappearance from physical life. One cycles of expression disappearing as it merge into a new cycle of expression.
Suddenly my vehicle cab erupted in jubilation and celebrations with a visual conference like communication of other deceased entities. One hell of a party was going down.
I long distanced phoned my sister for input, confirmation or rebuttal.
Sister's input - surprise and respite: Yes ! - she was becoming seriously concerned and alarmed. Her husband's growing fear that he would die well before his time was becoming an intrusive disruption to the marriage. In short, she was at odds with how to deal with his obsessive fear of early death.
She would relay my described communication and other omitted personal information to him for consideration.
Regarding the party celebrations she could not initially put her finger on any of it - no birthdays or celebrations were imminent. After some general catch up chit-chat she suddenly stopped me short, interrupting with the proverbial 'F' explicit. "F - it just hit me like a ton of bricks - when did this happen ?" she demanded". I gave her the day and date of the incident. "Hang on - it just struck me - I'm going to check something - hang on." She returns excitedly, "That's the day (day and month date) he died - F! - that's what the party is all about. It's his pass-over birthday - its his death birthday!" She was close to the old man and both exited and taken aback. No doubt she was also pleased with this revelation - it would add credibility to my communication and sit well with her husband.
I had missed the obvious that I was not privy to.
- DP was not someone I would actively seek to - or - not listen to, But she was a lovable phenomena that could not be ignored.
- In light of the above party reference I posit its now a case of - "Well, Hello Dolly" - one hell of a party is going to be going down.
source: ChatGpt
If you mean Barbra Streisand and Louis Armstrong in Hello, Dolly! (1969), I think the evidence points much more toward genuine musical rapport than a purely manufactured or exploitative relationship—but there is an important qualification: the film itself absolutely uses Armstrong in a commercially calculated way.
The chemistry looks unusually real
Watch the title-number sequence closely. Streisand isn't simply smiling at Armstrong because the script tells her to. She responds to his musical personality—his scat singing, his timing, his little vocal interjections, his famous "yeah" sounds—and plays with them. The two actually listen to one another.The Louis Armstrong House Museum specifically notes the playful interaction: Streisand scats while Armstrong sings the melody, and she imitates his vocal mannerisms.
That matters because Armstrong's style was extremely difficult to fake convincingly. Streisand was a technically formidable singer, but she doesn't try to overpower him or turn him into a conventional duet partner. She leaves space for Armstrong's personality.
Contemporary critic Pauline Kael's reaction is especially interesting. The New Yorker described Streisand's work with Armstrong as being done with "pure love"—not exactly the language you'd expect from someone seeing a coldly calculated studio pairing.
But the casting was unquestionably exploitative in a commercial sense
Here I think your suspicion has some justification.Armstrong's presence wasn't primarily motivated by the story. He was brought into the movie because "Hello, Dolly!" was already identified with Louis Armstrong. His 1964 recording had been a huge hit and had reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
So Hollywood effectively had this situation:
Putting them together was an extraordinarily obvious marketing opportunity.
And there's an even more interesting racial/cultural dimension. A scholarly analysis of the sequence argues that Armstrong's presence helped legitimize Streisand's position as the new cinematic Dolly, while the scene symbolically brings together two very different American musical traditions—Jewish-American popular singing and African-American jazz.
So yes: the studio was using Louis Armstrong.
But that's not necessarily the same thing as Streisand personally exploiting Louis Armstrong.
There's a revealing piece of evidence from Armstrong himself
This is probably the strongest counterargument to the exploitation interpretation.The Louis Armstrong House Museum has preserved recordings from the period surrounding the filming. Armstrong's own tapes actually include his Hello, Dolly! material with Streisand, and in one later compilation he specifically retained the duet with Streisand while removing other material from the recording.
That's quite suggestive.
If Armstrong had regarded the encounter as humiliating, purely transactional, or something imposed upon him, you'd be less likely to find him preserving and revisiting the material himself.
There's also an amusing contemporary telegram from the Hello, Dolly! set. Armstrong was sending his friends his little novelty photographs and talking about Streisand; the Louis Armstrong House Museum describes the material as containing "nice things about Barbra Streisand and the making of Dolly."
And Armstrong's surviving off-camera recordings give us something the finished movie can't: Armstrong behaving as himself around people. The museum's material from this period depicts him joking, teasing, and interacting with friends rather than behaving like somebody who felt intimidated by the production.
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