Reviews for Disciplining subordinates

The average rating for Disciplining subordinates based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-01-26 00:00:00 Phil Phipps Rock's greatest poet. This book made me realized that Bob Dylan can indeed pull it off and win the Nobel Prize for Literature in the next few years. Until after I read this book, he was known to me more of a performer with his very meaningful 60's protest song Blowing in the Wind. Then I learned through this book that he also wrote (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction and Like a Rolling Stone. These two pop songs have no political tones but I grew up with them. This very educational book is short and concise. It tells about Dylan's rise to fame, his many wives, his drug abuse, his talents in writing. He not only wrote songs but also poems, fiction (Tarantula being his only novel but it did not look like a novel to me) and memoir (Chronicles that is now in the top of my hunting-for-this list). Dylan does not have a golden voice yet he made it big in the global music industry. His recipe for success: energy, passion and breaking the rules. Dylan has made a career out of breaking the rules and doing the opposite of what people expected:1. Radio stations will not play anything longer than 3 minutes. He broke this by writing and recording songs that ran for more than 3 minutes Like a Rolling Stone in 1965. This was copied by The Beatles with their Hey Jude and Led Zeppelin with their Stairway to Heaven. 2. We write 'em, you sing 'em During his time if you were a songwriter, you could not sing your own songs. He broke this by singing his compositions. This was copied by Joni Mitchell, Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costelo and Ani DiFranco. 3. Stick to the style you know best. He broke this by doing all the genres possible at the length of his singing career: folk, rock, pop, blues, country and even reggae and rap and still make music that is unmistakably Dylan. Other artists who have followed this more difficult path are Ray Charles, Willie Nelson and Lucinda Williams. 4. Play your hits and make them recognizable. Artists used to perform their songs just like how they recorded them. He broke this by changing his recorded songs so that they were almost unrecognizable when he did them on stage. Many artists do this now following his footsteps. He was born in 1941 so he will turn 71 this year (May 24th). He started performing at the age of 18. So, he has been in show business for 52 years. Those many years of skillful songwriting and singing are enough legacies for us to remember him and appreciate his contribution making our stay on earth more meaningful if not memorable. Songs without melody are poems. I have no doubt that he deserves to win a Nobel plum before his death. If I could just cast my vote, mine is undoubtedly yours, Mr. Dylan.

Review # 2 was written on 2014-03-22 00:00:00 Pawel Wiszniewski A slim volume for some big voices: Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Mahalia Jackson, Billie Holiday and Aretha Franklin. The first two giants of the classic blues era allow Hettie Jones to write mostly triumphant stories in a setting of overt racism. Mahalia Jackson's story is a little more complicated and I had the feeling that the famous gospel singer never quite got over childhood trauma. On the other hand, who would? It is amazing that this music has survived, evolved, and it is amazing what these individuals dealt with and defeated. But this isn't just the old, repeating African-American narrative, the black version of Horatio Alger: you know, first I was a slave then I escaped up North, now I drive a big car and wear gold chains instead of shackles... Hettie Jones is deeper than that and even here writing for young adults she doesn't stick to the formula. Things obviously don't go anywhere close to that way for Billie Holiday, but I had the feeling that that chapter was more or less a summary of Holiday's own book. The Aretha Franklin chapter, written in the heat of the moment, is short and maybe confusing. Aretha is expected to serve as a conclusion? Or as bait to interest (at the time) younger readers? Maybe the editors played with it so that the Aretha chapter comes across like, well now Black Women Singers have made it, no one is going to steal their music or deny them proper health care or whatever but Aretha can still sing the blues. Yeah, I wasn't sure what that chapter was really about. My copy is a 1976 paperback and part of the fun was the ads for other books inside it. Apparently Dell had a whole series under the Laurel-Leaf imprint of progressive and minority biographies for young adults. Also an ad for "black experience" books... remember when they used to call it that?