From:   "Dik de Heer" 
Date:  Fri Apr 12, 2002  1:14 am
Subject:  Born To Be With You : Billy Vaughn

BILLY VAUGHN

Born Richard Smith Vaughn, 12 April 1919, Glasgow, Kentucky
Died 26 September 1991, Escondido, California

Orchestra leader / arranger.
Billy Vaughn was one of the most popular orchestra leaders and pop music
arrangers of the '50s and early '60s. In fact, he had more pop hits than any
other orchestra leader during the rock & roll era. Vaughn was also the
musical director for many of the hitmakers on Dot Records, including Pat
Boone, the Fontane Sisters, and Gale Storm.
Vaughn began his professional music career in 1952, forming the vocal
quartet the Hilltoppers with Don McGuire, Jimmy Sacca, and Seymour
Spiegelman. From 1952 to 1957, the Hilltoppers had 15 Top 40 hit singles,
beginning with Vaughn's song "Trying". He left the group in 1955 to join
Dot Records as a musical director.
Vaughn was responsible for most of Dot's biggest hits of the '50s, as he
re-arranged popular rock 'n' roll and R&B songs for white, mainstream
groups. His first success was with the Fontane Sisters, who sang with
his orchestra on all their singles, including their 1954 breakthrough hit
"Hearts of Stone." However, Dot's biggest success was Pat Boone, who
had a series of hits with Vaughn's cleaned-up arrangements of rock 'n' roll
songs. At the same time he was leading the pop vocal division of Dot, Billy
Vaughn was recording his own instrumental records. Beginning with 1954's
"Melody Of Love" (# 2), Vaughn had a string of easy listening U.S. hit
singles that ran for over a decade. Until 1957 his sound differed little
from countless other dance bands, but all that changed with "Sail Along
Silvery Moon". This international hit introduced the twin alto sax harmony
that would become Vaughn's trademark for the next six years. Though it
sounds like two alto saxes, it is in fact Justin Gordon overdubbing his own
sax ("I could overdub an album in an hour.") Vaughn also recorded
numerous hit albums, with 36 of his records entering the U.S. album
charts between 1958 and 1970. He was also very succesful in Europe
(particularly in Germany, where "Sail Along Silvery Moon" and "La
Paloma" both sold a million in that country alone), Japan (where he did
several tours from 1966 onwards) and South America. Today, eleven
years after Vaughn's death, the still very much active Billy Vaughn
Orchestra is led by drummer Dick Shanahan, a longtime Vaughn
sideman who started recording with him in the late 1950s.

A nice website: http://www.proaxis.com/~settlet/music/vaughn.html
There is a 6-CD Bear Family box-set of the 1954-1958 recordings
("Sail Along Silvery Moon"), with a second box-set in the making.