Arguably the most talented member of the 1990’s UK all boy band, Take That, which also consisted of Robbie Williams, Mark Owen, Howard Donald and Jason Orange. Gary Barlow was an astute youngster when he opted to have a piano for his birthday instead of a bike, never heard of anyone reaching the number one spot in the UK charts by riding a bike!

Gary Barlow was born on January 20^th 1971 in Frodsham, Cheshire, UK. From the age of eleven he knew exactly where he wanted to focus his attention when, for his eleventh birthday he chose a piano for his gift. That saw the beginning of Gary’s musical talents coming to the fore.

By fifteen Gary was being recognized for his musical gift when he entered a BBC day time show completion called, ‘A song for Christmas’ and it was his self composed song, ‘Let’s Pray for Christmas’ that eventually saw Gary getting though to the semifinals and having the chance to record his song at a London recording studio.

This event spurred Gary on and by the age of eighteen he was signed to a musical agent, Barry Woolley who would for a while have Gary using the stage name Kurtis Rush when he released his first single, ‘Love is in the Air’ in 1990.

Gary’s first single was badly received and he left his manager to be guided by pop manager, Nigel Martin-Smith who together with Gary formed the band Take That and appointed Gary lead singer. At first it may have appeared to have been a bad move on Gary’s part when Woolley took him to court for breaking his contract but with only having to hand over £500,000 to Woolley it would seem that Gary’s decision to join Martin-Smith was the right one as his career saw him achieving a decade of number one hits.

As the main musical talent in Take That, Gary took them to their first number one when he penned the hit ‘Pray’. They continued to have hits with ‘A million Love Songs’, ‘It only takes a Minute’ and ‘Could it be Magic’.

Together the band released four albums between 1992 and 1996, Take That and Party, Everything Changes, and Nobody Else and finally their Greatest Hits album.

Barlow received an Ivor Novello Award for Best Contemporary Song in 1994 for the song Pray included in the album Everything Changes

It was Barlow who was rumoured to be less happy when other band members sang the lead vocals on songs although this was never apparent when the band were seen together. However, he remained the songwriter, and the hits kept on coming with the likes of "Back For Good" which reached number one in the UK and number 10 in the USA and "Everything Changes". The song "Back For Good" caused some controversy because rumours surfaced that Barry Gibb had in fact written the song but agreed to credit Barlow if he would arrange that Take That would cover a Bee Gees song ("How Deep is Your Love" was covered). In a 2001 interview, Robin Gibb stated that this information was false, Barry Gibb had not written the song and no such agreement was ever made.

It was a sad day and huge shock to Take That fans when in 1996 they announced that the band was splitting up. At this point Gary went solo and achieved a number one hit with his first solo release, Forever Love, and his album, Open Road, also went to the top of the chart, as did his second solo single "Love Won't Wait" written by Madonna and Shep Pettibone.

Barlow’s success continued although not as strongly as when he was with Take That until the late 1990’s when the press capitalized on a rift between him and former band member Robbie Williams, whom they favored after his number one hit, Angels. The situation got the better of Gary and he abandoned his singing career and concentrated on a writing career working with Elton John, Donny Osmond and Christina Aguilera amongst others.

In 2006 Take That reformed, this time as a four member line up, without Robbie Williams, after a TV documentary which saw them having a sell out stadium concert and releasing a number one hit, Patience, which remained at number one for 4 weeks. They were finally removed from the number one position by the X-Factor winner of 2006, Leona Lewis.

In 2007 the band won their tenth Brit Award and added to the success of Gary having been the 4 time recipient of the prestigious Ivor Novello Awards.

Prior to his new rise to fame, in 2000 Gary married the one person who seemed to be always by his side during the down years, Dawn Andrews. Together they have a son Daniela and a daughter Emily.

One of the most successful songwriters of the 1990s, penning no fewer than 16 hit singles during the decade, Gary had 2 number 1's and 5 further Top 40 UK singles as a solo singer and as such evoked what could almost be seen as an apology from Robbie Williams when, in a 2005 television documentary Take That... for the Record he claimed he would give all his success up just to be as happy as Gary was with his family.

ABB