Musician, Songwriter, Producer. The son of acclaimed Calypso performer "MacBeth The Great", his father immigrated from Trinidad to New York and Ralph would be reared in Harlem. It was apparent from early on that he shared his father's love for music and around the age of ten Ralph would gleefully dance to his dad's playing. By his teens, MacDonald's destiny was to follow his path as a performer and at the age of seventeen landed a spot with Harry Belafonte's Steel Band. MacDonald once claimed to Belafonte that there was not enough traditional Calypso sound in his music. The legendary singer responded by challenging MacDonald to write a song; thus resulting in the album "Calypso Carnival" (1966), which MacDonald arranged and conducted. During the early 1970s, he co-founded the publishing company Antisia Music and achieved commercial success for the score "Where is the Love?" (1972), co-written with William Salter, which sold ten-million copies, earning Grammy Awards for Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway. As an individual artist, he benefited from the highly-successful soundtrack of "Saturday Night Fever" (1977), receiving two Grammy Awards as a producer and performer for the score "Calypso Breakdown", which was included on the album. He achieved yet another commercial hit as co-writer and performer (percussion), this time with the collaboration of Grover Washington, Jr. and Bill Withers on the single "Just the Two of Us" (1981, receiving a Grammy Award), from Washington's album "Winelight" (1981). Beyond that point, MacDonald remained active as a songwriter in addition to performing with Jimmy Buffett and the Coral Reefer Band. He had suffered from a variety of health issues including lung cancer and a stroke in later years and died from their complications.