Richard "Billy" Vaughn was a singer, multi-instrumentalist and orchestra leader. He was born in Glasgow, Kentucky, where his father was a barber who loved music and inspired Billy to teach himself to play the mandolin at age 3, while suffering a case of the 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 sent abroad till the war ended in 1945.