Walter Afanasieff
American record producer and songwriter
Walter Afanasieff (born Vladimir Nikitich Afanasiev; Russian: Владимир Никитич Афанасьев, February 10, 1958), formerly nicknamed Baby Love in the 1980s, is an American record producer and songwriter. He was a frequent collaborator of Mariah Carey on her first six studio albums. Afanasieff and Carey co-wrote many songs together, including the number-one singles "Hero", "All I Want for Christmas Is You", "One Sweet Day", and "My All". He won the 1999 Grammy Award in the Record of the Year category for producing "My Heart Will Go On" by Celine Dion, and the 2000 Grammy Award for Producer of the Year, Non-Classical.
Early life
Afanasieff was born in São Paulo, Brazil. His father was Russian, while his mother, who was from Harbin, China, was of Russian-Chinese descent. When Afanasieff was four or five, his family moved to the United States. He received his education from Conservatory of Music in San Mateo.
Career
Starting out as a working jazz musician in 1980, Afanasieff initially played keyboards with the jazz/fusion violinist Jean-Luc Ponty. Later, he formed The Warriors with another former Ponty sideman, guitarist Joaquin Lievano, and with 1980s music producer/songwriter and drummer Narada Michael Walden, and these experiences gave him the background and confidence to take an active role as a producer.
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This entry incorporates text from “Walter Afanasieff” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.