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William Richard Vaughn (April 12, 1919 – September 26, 1991) was an American singer, multi-instrumentalist, orchestra leader, and A&R man for Dot Records.
Vaughn was born in Glasgow, Kentucky, United States, where his father was a barber who loved music and inspired Billy to teach himself to play the mandolin at the age of three, while suffering from measles. He went on to learn a number of other instruments.
In 1941, Vaughn joined the United States National Guard for what had been planned as a one-year assignment, but when World War II broke out, he was in for the duration as a valued musician and composer at Camp Shelby, Mississippi. Major General Daniel I. Sultan decided that Vaughn was too valuable to the base's Thirty-Eighth Division big band, and kept him at Camp Shelby for the duration of the war. He decided to make music a career when he was discharged from the army at the end of the war, and on the GI Bill, attended Western Kentucky State College, now known as Western Kentucky University, majoring in music composition. He had apparently learned barbering from his father, because he did some while studying at Western Kentucky to support himself financially, when he was not able to get jobs playing the piano at local night clubs and lounges. While he was a student there, three other students, Jimmy Sacca, Donald McGuire, and Seymour Spiegelman, who had formed a vocal trio, the Hilltoppers, recruited Vaughn to play the piano with them. He soon added his voice to theirs, converting the trio to a quartet. As a member of the group, he also wrote their first hit song, "Trying", which charted in 1952.
In 1954, he left the group to join Dot Records in Gallatin, Tennessee, as music director. He subsequently formed his own orchestra which had a hit single in that same year with "Melody of Love." It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. He went on to have many more hits over the next decade and a half, and, based purely on chart successes, was the most successful orchestra leader of the rock era.
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