Who is Gary Barlow?
Gary was born 20 Jan 1971 in Frodsham, Cheshire/UK. He spent
the last 6 years in the pop band Take That who had
huge hits like
"Back For Good", "Pray" and "Relight My Fire" to
name but a few.
After Take That's last official engagement, a TV
show in
Amsterdam April 1996, Gary flew straight back to
London to
continue work on his debut solo album.
Forever Love, Gary's debut solo single was released
in the UK in
July 1996 and went straight to Number 1 in the UK
Top 40.
The album Open Road was due to be released in September 1996. However
after resigning
to his American Record Company, Arista, Gary performed a showcase at
BMG's world
conference in San Diego and impressed the head of Arista, Clive Davis,
so much that he
was given the opportunity of working with producers and songwriters he
had only
dreamed of. As a result the album was put on hold and Gary virtually
re-recorded the
whole album, only 4 tracks remained on the finished version.
It was around this time that Gary split from his long term
manager Nigel Martin-Smith. Gary felt that nobody was
keeping up with his version for the album and his dreams for
breaking America. Gary then signed with Simon Fuller, whose
acts include Anne Lennox, Cathy Denis and of course the
Spice Girls. Incidentally all of which have had huge success in
the USA.
April 1997 and after having been out of the public eye for
most of the year, Gary released the first of his new material.
Love Won't Wait which was written by Shep Pettibone and
Madonna was released in the UK and hit the top slot straight
away. Gary was back and better than ever!
During the following months, Gary split with Simon Fuller and
set up an own management company "GloBe Artists" of which
he is the Executive Director and which is run with the help of
his manager Kristina Kyriacou who had worked with Take That for the
last few months of
the band.
Open Road was released in the UK in May 1997. Again it shot straight
to the top of the UK
album and making Gary the only former Take That member to have a
Number 1 album.
So Help Me Girl, a cover of a country and western song by Joe Diffie,
was the next UK
single and was also chosen as the first single release for the US
where it reached No.44 in
the charts.
The next UK release was "Open Road" - the album
title track. It
jumped into the charts at No.7 and stayed around
for awhile. In
the meantime Gary released "Open Road" and "Are You
Ready
Now" as singles on the European continent.
The US "Open Road" album finally hit the stores in
the second
week of January 1998. The US version features a
slightly different
tracking list and has a brand new tune "Superhero"
on the album.
Gary starts a European tour in February 1998 which
will feature
him and music pure.
Straight after the tour which finishes in early
April Gary will be
back in the studio recording his second solo album. This time the
album will feature songs
written by or with Babyface - right now in the charts with his duet
with Stevie Wonder,
Mark Morrison the "Return of The Mack" and Denniz Pop who wrote
classics like "Quit
Playing Games (With My Heart)" by Backstreet Boys.