RIP RALPH CARMICHAEL

1927-2021

Ralph Carmichael was an composer and arranger of both secular pop and contemporary Christian music, regarded as The father of Contemporary Christian music.  

In the mid-1950s he joined Desilu as an assistant musical director, composing and arranging background and incidental music for “I Love Lucy”.  

On television, however, his most famous contribution was the theme song to “My Mother The Car” starring Jerry Van Dyke and Ann Sothern (as the voice of the title character).

Throughout the 1960s, Carmichael also worked with one of the decade’s most successful space age pop performers, pianist Roger Williams. He arranged over 20 albums for Williams and earned a gold record credit for “Born Free." 

He died on October 18, 2021, at the age of 94. 

Coincidentally, his last name was the same one Lucille Ball chose as her character name on “The Lucy Show.”  Even more coincidentally, her roommate Vivian Bagley’s ex-husband was named Ralph – but then, so was the actor that played Viv’s son, Ralph Hart.