Narada Michael Walden

Licence to Kill, sung by Gladys Knight over the titles of the 1989 Bond film, was written by Narada Michael Walden with Jeffrey Cohen and Walter Afanasieff, and produced by Walden. He had reached that point by an unusual route: born in Plainwell, Michigan in 1952, he was the drummer of the Mahavishnu Orchestra from 1974 and played on Jeff Beck's Wired before turning to production in San Francisco. The run that followed took in Aretha Franklin's Freeway of Love, Whitney Houston's How Will I Know and I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me), Aretha Franklin and George Michael's I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me), and Mariah Carey's Vision of Love and Emotions. He has won three Grammy Awards — Best R&B Song for Freeway of Love, Producer of the Year in 1987, and Album of the Year for The Bodyguard — and played drums with Journey between 2020 and 2022.