Coral Reefer Band

At age seventeen, MacDonald became the percussionist for legendary performer Harry Belafonte and began a musical relationship with him that would last nearly a decade. During that time Ralph wrote an album of songs for Belafonte entitled “Calpso Carnival”.

Ralph began working with Roberta Flack in 1971. During a recording session he played a sampling of a song he had written with Bill Salter called “Where is the Love”. She fell in love with it and recorded the song with Donny Hathaway. The song sold over 10 million copies and received a Grammy award.

Ralph played percussion on nearly a dozen Grammy Award winning artists including Carly Simon and James Taylor’s “Mockingbird”, Paul Simon’s “Still Crazy After All These Years” and “Graceland,” Billy Joel’s “Just the Way You Are,” Roberta Flack’s “Killing me Softly,” George Benson’s “Breezin'”, Bette Midler’s “Do You Want to Dance,” Diana Ross’s “Mirror, Mirror”, and Grover Washington Jr’s, “Winelight.”

In 1977 one of Ralph’s songs “Calypso Breakdown” appeared on the BeeGees “Saturday Night Fever” soundtrack. The album went on to sell 47 million copies and earned MacDonald two Grammys of his own, as a performer and a producer.

In 1980 Ralph wrote and produced songs for Grover Washington Jr’s classic album “Winelight.” Ralph along with William Salter, and Bill Withers composed the song “Just The Two Of Us” for the album. The song won a Grammy award for best R&B song. It has since been recorded by hundreds of artists worldwide, including Will Smith’s adaptation in 1999.