Appalachian music icon Jean Ritchie, who influenced generations of folk and country stars, passed away on Monday, June 1, at age 92.

During her long and illustrious career, Ritchie revived and popularized the dulcimer, preserved hundreds of traditional mountain songs, recorded more than 30 albums, wrote seven books, helped establish the Newport Folk Festival, wrote songs for many country and bluegrass stars, and was a musical touchstone for Pete Seeger, Emmylou Harris, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Doc Watson, Judy Collins and more.

Joan Baez called her “the Mother of Folk” music. Dolly Parton said, “When I grow up, I want to write just like Jean Ritchie.”

The legend’s final album, Dear Jean: Artists Celebrate Jean Ritchie, was released by Nashville’s Compass Records label in 2014. It featured contributions from Seeger, Collins, Kathy Mattea, Janis Ian, Robin & Linda Williams, Tim O’Brien, Suzy Bogguss and Dale Ann Bradley, among many others.

Mattea recorded Ritchie’s “West Virginia Mine Disaster” and “Black Waters.” Ritchie’s “The L&N Don’t Stop Here Anymore” was popularized in 1979 by Johnny Cash, and was also recorded by Michelle Shocked, The New Coon Creek Girls, Bobby Goldsboro and others. Kenny Rogers recorded the folk legend’s “Tennessee Bottle.” Emmylou Harris did Ritchie’s “Sorrow in the Wind” on her landmark 1979 LP Blue Kentucky Girl.

“Blue Diamond Mines” was cut by bluegrass artists including The Seldom Scene and The Johnson Mountain Boys. “My Dear Companion” was on the acclaimed 1987 Trio LP by Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris. Others who recorded Jean Ritchie’s songs include Roger McGuinn, June Carter Cash, Laurie Lewis, Alice Gerrard and Graham Nash.

Jean Ritchie was the youngest of 14 children born to a farm family in the mountains of Viper, KY. She grew up singing traditional folk songs. As an adult, she learned they were called “hillbilly” or “country” numbers.

With a college degree in social work, she moved to New York City in 1947. She sang her traditional tunes in Greenwich Village, where she was heard by Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly and Oscar Brand, all of whom praised her. In 1950, she married photographer and filmmaker George Pickow (1922-2010).

Her influential repertoire at the time included “Fair and Tender Ladies,” “Pretty Saro,” “Amazing Grace,” “Black Is the Color of My True Love’s Hair,” “One Morning in May,” “Barbara Allen,” “Lord Randall” and “Father Get Ready.”

Ritchie began recording in 1952. By the time of the “folk revival” of the late 1950s and early 1960s, she was fairly prominent. She often sang on Brand’s WNYC radio show. She was among the headliners at the inaugural Newport Folk Festival in 1959, along with Earl Scruggs, Odetta, Baez and Seeger.

The Kingston Trio and Judy Collins both relied on her arrangements of traditional songs on their early albums. Her melody for “Fair Nottamun Town” was used by Bob Dylan for his “Masters of War.” She demanded and received compensation.

In 1963, she recorded a landmark album with Doc Watson. During this same period, she began encouraging craftspeople to build mountain dulcimers and published instruction booklets about playing the ancient modal instrument.

Ritchie released the album None But One in 1977. It won a Rolling Stone magazine Critics’ Choice award. She was the subject of the 1996 nationally telecast documentary Mountain Born: The Jean Ritchie Story. She also appeared in the 1996 TBS six-hour documentary series America’s Music: The Roots of Country, produced by Nashville’s Tom Neff.

In 2002, Jean Ritchie received a National Endowment for the Arts Heritage Fellowship and was inducted into the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame. She suffered a stroke in 2009 and moved to Berea, KY, where she died.

Jean Ritchie is survived by sons Peter and Jonathan Pickow, both of whom have performed with her.

By Robert K. Oermann & Michael McCall

Longtime Nashville publicist Mike Hyland passed away following a two-year battle with cancer on Thursday, May 28, at his home in Sonoma, CA. He was 65.

He began his career in rock music and was the first publicist for The Allman Brothers. He moved to Nashville in 1979 to head the publicity department of Elektra/Asylum. The following year, he formed Network Ink with Exit/In nightclub co-founder Liz Thiels. This was one of the Nashville music industry’s first and most important independent publicity firms.

In 1984, he formed The Hyland Company. Over the years, his clients included Hank Williams Jr., Asleep at the Wheel, Waylon Jennings, The Burrito Brothers, Keith Whitley, Dale Watson, Riders in the Sky, Jerry Lee Lewis, The Kentucky HeadHunters, Charley Pride, Eddie Rabbitt and Leon Russell.

He also represented such companies as Acuff-Rose Music, Almo/Irving Music, House of Gold Music, MCA Music, Monument Records, The Bluebird Cafe, Country Radio Seminar, the Minnie Pearl Museum, NARAS, WSM-AM/FM, WKDF-FM and WLAC-AM/FM.

In late 1989, Hyland joined Gaylord Entertainment. He did publicity for the 1991 Grand Ole Opry Tour, the 1994 re-opening of The Ryman Auditorium, Opryland’s Nashville on Stage summer concert series and other endeavors.

In 1997, Hyland established Full Court Press with his wife, Phyllis. During the next few years, the company became increasingly involved with the wine industry. It launched the annual Wine Down Main Street Festival in Middle Tennessee. In 2009, the Hylands decided to relocate to the California wine country.

Hyland wrote for Wine Country This Week and The Sonoma Sun, as well as providing public-relations consulting to CornerStone Sonoma, Meadowcroft and Thomas Henry Wines.

Michael Hyland was born on Long Island and raised in upstate New York. As a young man, he began representing such top rock acts as Humble Pie, Dave Mason, Procol Harum, The Rascals, Cat Stevens and Traffic. He also represented the famed concert venue The Fillmore East.

His passion for the music of The Allman Brothers led him to relocate to Macon, GA in the early 1970s. At age 25, he became Vice President of Public Relations for Capricorn Records there. This made him one of the youngest record executives in America. In addition to the Allmans, he worked with the rest of the label’s roster, including Elvin Bishop, Bonnie Bramlett, Delbert McClinton, the Marshall Tucker Band, Wet Willie, Martin Mull, Sea Level and Livingston Taylor, as well as the solo careers of Gregg Allman and Dickey Betts.

Hyland’s succeeding successes in Nashville spanned the 1980s and 1990s.

Mike Hyland is survived by his wife Phyllis Lewis, by sons Glynn and John Hyland of LaGrange, GA, by daughter Amanda Hyland Jones of Dallas, TX and by stepchildren Travis and Laurie Armstrong of Nashville. Funeral arrangements have not been released.

Blues legend B.B. King died last night (May 14). He was 89.

Riley B. King spent more than 70 years entertaining fans with his blues riffs and, according to the 2014 documentary B.B. King: The Life of Riley, performing more than 15,000 shows by the time of his death.

Along the way, he earned numerous accolades, including 15 Grammy Awards (in addition to a Lifetime Achievement honor in 1987), the Presidential Medal of the Arts, Presidential Medal of Freedom, and inductions into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame. In 2005, Mississippi state legislature honored the singer-songwriter-guitarist with B.B. King Day.

King was born in Mississippi on Sept. 16, 1925. Some of his earliest recordings were for Nashville-based label Bullet Records, and for Sam Phillips‘ RPM label. For a short time, he worked as a singer and disc jockey at WDIA where he earned the nickname “Beale Street Blues Boy,” which was later shortened to “Blues Boy” and then to “B.B.”

Numerous acclaimed songs would follow, including “How Blue Can You Get,” “Everyday I Have The Blues,” “3 O’Clock Blues,” “Please Love Me,” “You Upset Me Baby,” and “The Thrill Is Gone,” which garnered King his first Grammy in 1970, for Best R&B Male Vocal Performance.

Classic albums included 2000’s double platinum-selling Riding With The King, 1997’s gold-selling Deuces Wild, 1971’s Live in Cook County Jail, 1970’s Indianola Mississippi Seeds, and numerous others.

Veteran Nashville songwriter Herb McCullough died at home in Florida on Tuesday, May 5, at age 70.

More than 100 albums contain his tunes. Among the stars who’ve recorded his songs are Diamond Rio, Josh Turner, Charley Pride, Highway 101, Wade Hayes, Rhett Akins, Hal Ketchum, Mel McDaniel, Mark Chesnutt, Joy Lynn White, T.G. Sheppard, Marie Osmond and John Schneider.

John Anderson made the country charts with McCullough’s cowritten “Down in the Orange Grove” in 1988. Although the songwriter never had a major hit, his songs were recorded steadily for more than 30 years.

He is particularly noted for bluegrass recordings. Among the genre’s stars who have recorded Herb McCullough songs are The Seldom Scene, The Lynn Morris Band, Valerie Smith & Liberty Pike, The Isaacs, Larry Cordle & Lonesome Standard Time, Harley Allen, David Parmley and Mike Auldridge. Among McCullough’s best-known bluegrass tunes is “The Man with the Travelin’ Teardrop Blues,” as popularized by The Del McCoury Band in 2001.

He frequently collaborated with dulcimer virtuoso David Schnaufer (1952-2006) and with good friend Shawn Camp. Other Americana artists who recorded McCullough songs include Barry & Holly Tashian, Rattlesnake Annie, Hobo Jim, Toni Price and Jim Rooney.

Herb McCullough moved to Nashville from Winter Haven, Fla., in 1974 at age 30. He signed his first song-publishing contract in 1978, the year that Moe Bandy became the first of many artists to record his songs.

He retired to Apopka, Fla. several years ago. Herb McCullough is survived by his wife, Joann, daughter Christie Williams and son Sean McCullough. At his request, he will be cremated today, May 11, with a celebration of life to follow on May 16 at the Dunnellon, Fla., Funeral Home.