Billy McLaughlin is an American new age acoustic guitarist, composer and producer.

McLaughlin, of Irish ancestry, graduated with honors from the University of Southern California.

In 1998, Mclaughlin began noticing symptoms of focal dystonia, a neurological condition which severely limits his ability to play guitar.

[1] He began retraining himself to play left-handed, ultimately developing a tapping style holding the neck of the guitar toward his right shoulder.

During his December 2006 concerts with Simple Gifts, the sextet he formed in 2002 to play Christmas music, he performed the hammering style left-handed and more traditional strumming style right-handed, using separate sets of guitars tuned for the manner in which he was playing.