Biography
Walter Afanasieff’s recording credits encompass Celine Dion’s “Beauty and the Beast,” along with work for Mariah Carey, Coko, Luther Vandross, Peabo Bryson, Michael Bolton, Kenny G, Natalie Cole, All-4-One, Allure featuring 112, Regina Belle, Trey Lorenz on “Someone to Hold,” Shanice Wilson, and Barbra Streisand. He partnered with Carey on the hits “Can’t Let Go,” “Butterfly,” “Close My Eyes,” and “Forever,” plus additional tracks from her Merry Christmas album. In fall 1999 he co-produced Savage Garden’s single “I Knew I Loved You.” His instrumental “Miracles” was included on the Windham Hill anthology Songs Without Words. Born on February 10, 1958, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Afanasieff gained his first major opportunity playing keyboards for Jean-Luc Ponty. Preferring the recording studio over live performance, he benefited from the guidance of producer, songwriter, and drummer Narada Michael Walden—whose own résumé includes Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, and Aretha Franklin—who brought him into numerous sessions, co-wrote pop material with him, and appointed him staff producer and arranger at Tarpan Studios. Afanasieff’s contributions appear on Walden-produced releases such as Whitney Houston’s self-titled 1985 debut, which sold eleven million copies and held the number-one Pop position for fourteen weeks around the summer of 1985, her Whitney album, which topped the Pop chart for eleven weeks in summer 1987, and the 1990 set I’m Your Baby Tonight, which also spent eleven weeks at number one that summer. Among his songwriting entries are “Can’t Stop the Rain,” co-authored with John Bettis for Peabo Bryson and Grover Washington Jr.; “Do You Still Remember,” written with Preston Glass and Jeffrey Cohen for Aretha Franklin; and “Help Me Find a Way to Your Heart,” crafted with Alan Gorrie, Jeffrey Smith, Daryl Hall, Peter Moreland, and Mariah Carey for Daryl Hall. His playing surfaces on Eddie Murphy’s So Happy, notably the number-two R&B single “Put Your Mouth on Me” in summer 1989, as well as Brenda Russell’s Greatest Hits, Clarence Clemons’s Hero, Aretha Franklin’s platinum-certified Who’s Zoomin’ Who?, Regina Belle’s Stay With Me, Patti LaBelle’s Be Yourself and Burnin’, Michael Bolton’s Time, Love & Tenderness, Puff Johnson’s Miracle, Grover Washington Jr.’s Soulful Strut, Babyface’s Christmas With Babyface, and the compilation Ecstasy’s Dance: The Best of Narada Michael Walden. Further soundtrack appearances include Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, whose Celine Dion/Peabo Bryson duet went platinum and reached number nine Pop in early 1992, plus Aladdin, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Back to Titanic featuring Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On,” and the Timothy Dalton James Bond film License to Kill.