Mel Carter (born 22 April 1939, Cincinnati, Ohio) is an American singer. Carter's work was, whilst not the perfect companion to the soul music produced by others during his active artistic output, still representative of the tenor of the genre/time in and of which he sung. Although he did record for Sam Cooke's SAR record label in the early 1960s, by the time he reached his commercial peak with Imperial Records in the middle of the decade, he was specializing in middle-of-the-road pop ballads. These actually charted considerably higher on the easy listening charts than the pop ones, his biggest smash being the Top Ten Billboard Hot 100 hit "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me" (1965), an update of a composition that predated the rock era. He had a couple of other Top 40 entries over the next year, "Band of Gold" and "All of a Sudden My Heart Sings", as well as a few other big easy listening sellers, sounding at times like a more nervous and slightly up-tempo Johnny Mathis.