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Ralph Carmichael (born 28 May 1927, Quincy, Illinois) is a composer and arranger of both secular...

Ralph Carmichael (born 28 May 1927, Quincy, Illinois) is a composer and arranger of both secular pop music and contemporary Christian music, being regarded as one of the pioneers of the latter genre. Married to Marvella and father to composer and artist Carol Parks. His big break came at the end of the 1950s, when his work came to the attention of Capitol Records, who asked him to provide the arrangements for an album of mainly sacred Christmas songs by one of the label's biggest stars, Nat King Cole. The result, The Magic of Christmas, was released for the 1960 festive season, by which time Capitol had already set Carmichael to work with Cole on more secular albums. Carmichael duly became Cole's most regularly-utilised arranger from then until the singer's death in early 1965, their first mainstream pop collaboration being The Touch Of Your Lips (also 1960), an album of romantic ballads backed by lush strings, and their final team-up being Cole's last album, L.O.V.E., with jazzy big band arrangements, recorded in December 1964, only two months before Cole succumbed to the lung cancer which was already in its advanced stages, although that is little evident from the recordings. In