Inducted 1997

Hailed as the founder of Southern Gospel Music, James David Vaughan was a musical pioneer whose name is still revered by those he inspired through his publications, his music school, and his Christian example.

The James D. Vaughan Music Publishing Company, founded in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, in 1902 grew to be one of the largest gospel music publishers in the country. In 1910, Vaughan made the critical commitment to sponsor a traveling gospel quartet to advertise and sell his songbooks and, as a result, the Southern Gospel Music industry was born. 

He founded the Vaughan School of Music in 1911, and the annual institute produced some of gospel music's greatest performers and musicians. The following year, he founded the Vaughan Family Visitor...one of the most influential music publications in the South during the early twentieth century. 

Vaughan broadcast Southern Gospel Music over one of Tennessee's first radio stations, WOAN, a station he founded in 1922 and continued to operate until 1930. 

He also founded Vaughan Phonograph Records, the first record company in the South. He served as Mayor of Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, from 1923 to 1927.