- His ex-wife married Rolf McPherson in 1997.
- He was an American composer and arranger of both secular pop music and contemporary Christian music.
- Carmichael was born in Quincy, Illinois, the son of a Pentecostal minister.
- Carmichael's autobiography, He's Everything To Me, was published by Word Books in 1986.
- He is regarded as one of the pioneers of contemporary Christian music.
- Carmichael duly became Nat King Cole's most regularly utilized arranger from then until the singer's death in early 1965. Their first mainstream pop collaboration was The Touch of Your Lips (also 1960), an album of romantic ballads backed by lush strings, and their final team-up was Cole's last album, L-O-V-E. Featuring jazzy big band arrangements, it was recorded in December 1964, only two months before Cole succumbed to the lung cancer which was already in its advanced stages.
- Carmichael wrote arrangements for many other top performers, including Ella Fitzgerald, Bing Crosby, Jack Jones, Peggy Lee, Julie London, Al Martino and Roger Williams.
- Carmichael was inducted into the GMA Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 1985 and into the National Religious Broadcasters' Hall of Fame in 2001.
- Carmichael's work was noticed by Capitol Records in the late 1950s, who asked him to provide 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.
- He arranged most of the carols on the 1961 Stan Kenton album A Merry Christmas!.
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