Success came early for Cheshire-born Gary Barlow who began his music career at the age of 15 when he entered a BBC competition called A Song for Christmas. Judges were inspired by Gary's melodic Let's Pray for Christmas which allowed him to advance to the semifinals where he was invited to London's West Heath Studios to records his song.
Barlow decided this was the life he wanted and began touring the UK's northern club circuit singing his own songs as well as cover versions.
By 1990, at the age of 19, Barlow asked Barry Woolley to be his manager and recorded the single Love is in the Air under the stage name Kurtis Rush. The alias name proved to be useful at that time as the single was a commercial failure. Not deterred by this however, Barlow went on to work with pop manager Nigel Martin-Smith and ended up forming the band Take That of which he was the lead singer.
Martin-Smith was reported to have not supported Barlow with his decision to make it big in the US so he made the difficult decision to leave the long-time manager and sign on with Simon Fuller who, at the time, was known for turning the Spice Girls into a
So Help Me Girl, a cover version of a country song originally recorded by Joe Diffe, was Barlow's first release for the US. The song did remarkably well in a short time and reached number 44 in the US Billboard Single Charts and spent three weeks at number one in radio and record charts throughout the country.
Since January, 2000, the producer, singer, songwriter and bandleader has been married to former backing dancer Dawn Andrew, his fianc� for exactly one year. The couple has two children; their son Daniel who was born in 2000 and their daughter Emily, born in 2002.
Barlow has an autobiography out on the bookstands entitled My Take.