William Hundley Emerson, Jr. (January 22, 1938 – August 21, 2021) was an American five-string banjo player known for being one of the founding members of the original The Country Gentlemen and Emerson & Waldron and considered one of the finest bluegrass banjo players in music history.

The bluegrass musician named Bill Emerson written about on this biography page is often confused with another country musician named Bill Emerson (known as "Wild Bill Emerson") who was also born in 1938. As a result, bluegrass musician Bill Emerson is frequently incorrectly attributed to songs on various music databases (such as Discogs, AllMusic and Wiki) written by Wild Bill Emerson and/or his wife, Martha Jo "Jody" Emerson (who's often miscredited as "Jodie"). Wild Bill and Jody have written for many country artists such as George Jones, Hank Williams, Jr. and John Anderson.