Frederic Meyers; UCLA Dean, Labor Expert

Frederic Meyers, 82, labor relations expert and former associate dean of UCLA’s Anderson School of Management. Meyers taught industrial relations and labor economics for more than 20 years. He was known for his research on the impact of right-to-work laws prohibiting labor contracts from requiring union membership. His 1955 study of Texas’ law is considered the definitive analysis of the effects of the right-to-work provisions of the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act. He was a member of the National Academy of Arbitrators and was well-known as an arbitrator in labor-management disputes in Southern California. He also was a former director of UCLA’s Institute of Industrial Relations. Surviving him are his daughter, Sarah Meyers Allan, six grandchildren and one great-grandchild. His son was the late Stephen Z. Meyers, who co-founded the Jacoby & Meyers law firm. On March 11 of pneumonia in Williamstown, Mass.

Lillian McMurry; Founded Blues Record Label

Lillian McMurry, 78, who founded Trumpet records, an early 1950s label that produced some of the finest recordings of blues performers Sonny Boy Williamson (Rice Miller) and Elmore James. In 1949, McMurry found a stack of black artists’ records while cleaning out a space that she and her husband, Willard, had purchased for a furniture store. “It was the most unusual, sincere and solid sound I’d ever heard,” she recalled years later. “I’d never heard a black record before. I’d never heard anything with such rhythm and freedom.” She opened a record department in her husband’s Jackson, Miss., store that became a hub for black record buyers. She eventually started Trumpet, which she named after the angel Gabriel’s horn. She recorded gospel groups before discovering and recording Sonny Boy Williamson, a singer and harmonica player, in 1951. Sonny Boy’s standards such as “Nine Below Zero,” “Mighty Long Time” and “Cross My Heart” were all recorded for Trumpet. Slide guitarist Elmore James recorded “Dust My Broom,” which became his and the label’s biggest hit in the 1950s. Known to be a person of her word in dealing with artists, McMurry got out of the record business in the mid-1950s, when she had trouble collecting from distributors. In 1998 she was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame. On March 18 in Jackson of a heart attack.

Don Robertson; Influenced Stephen King

Don Robertson, 70, columnist and novelist who was a major influence on writer Stephen King. Robertson wrote 19 novels, many of which revolved around historical events such as the Civil War, the East Ohio Gas explosion of 1944 and the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963. Among his best-known works were “Praise the Human Season,” “The Second Murder,” and “The Greatest Thing That Almost Happened.” His 1988 novel, “The Ideal, Genuine Man,” was published by Philtrum Press, a small publishing house owned by horrormeister King. King said the story--about a retired Houston truck driver with a terminally ill wife who is trying to survive in a society that mistreats its elderly--”blew me away.” His company printed the book on parchment and bound it in unusually fine cloth. King also wrote a 14-page introduction in which he called Robertson one of his three greatest influences and “one of the best unknown publishing novelists in the United States.” He also blasted New York publishers for dismissing Robertson as a “mid-list” author whose characters were too ordinary. Early in his career, Robertson was a night editor for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, a columnist for the Cleveland Press and a radio and television talk show host. On Sunday of lung cancer at his home in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.