Gary Barlow

Gary Barlow, the pivotal force behind Take That, Britain's most successful boy band of all time, navigated a wildly fluctuating path as a pop singer. He grappled with matching the fame of bandmate Robbie Williams, the group's most gossip-column favorite, until their striking 2006 regrouping revived his standing among the nation's leading composers. Subsequent phases delivered individual triumphs via Since I Saw You Last, after which he immersed himself completely in crafting scores for the stage.

Born in Frodsham, Cheshire in 1971, Barlow drew motivation to take up the keyboard from seeing Depeche Mode perform "Just Can't Get Enough" on Top of the Pops. During his initial teenage period he refined his skills, and following a spot on the BBC program Pebble Mill he started appearing on the Northern working men's club circuit. In 1989 he issued a single as Kurtis Rush prior to meeting manager Nigel Martin-Smith, who sought to build the U.K.'s counterpart to New Kids on the Block. Regarded as the band's primary musical force, Barlow attained unmatched heights as one-fifth of Take That, notching eight number-one singles—several written by him—three chart-topping albums, and a devoted following so intense that a telephone helpline was required to manage their distress at the 1996 breakup.

Merely three months after the group's concluding hit, Barlow emerged with a toned physique and polished style for his first solo release, "Forever Love." Forecasts of him becoming the "next George Michael" seemed on track once that track hit the summit, matched by the Madonna-penned follow-up "Love Won't Wait" and the album Open Road. Yet no one anticipated the improbable resurgence of Robbie Williams, once viewed as the band's joker, whose Brit-pop-leaning Life Thru a Lens rendered Barlow's middle-of-the-road material comparatively ordinary. Following a two-year hiatus, Barlow reentered a landscape ruled by his former colleague; against steep challenges his dance-pop return "Stronger" peaked at number 16, and second album Twelve Months Eleven Days lingered only one week inside the Top 40.

Enduring the awkwardness of observing Williams capitalize on their swapped positions, Barlow endured several lean years before securing a publishing agreement with Sony that yielded songs for Delta Goodrem, Will Young, and Blue. In 2005 an ITV documentary tracing Take That's history plus a new Greatest Hits collection spurred the quartet, absent Williams, to reform for concerts and eventually fresh material. Remarkably they surpassed their 1990s commercial and critical peaks, as Beautiful World and The Circus each approached three million U.K. sales. In 2008 Barlow served as Director of Music for the ITV drama Britannia High; a year later he launched his own imprint, Future Records, signing classical vocalist Camilla Kerslake, MC Aggro Santos, and contest winner Emma's Imagination.

During 2010 he fully reconciled with Williams on the number-two duet "Shame," then joined the remaining Take That members for Progress, the fastest-selling album of the century. The next year Barlow marked his 40th birthday with his first solo concert in over a decade at London's Shepherd's Bush Empire, where Chris Martin, Midge Ure, and Delta Goodrem appeared alongside him. In 2012 he received the commission to compose and sing the official track for Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee. Penned with Andrew Lloyd Webber, "Sing" reached the U.K. singles summit, while the accompanying EP—featuring a cover of the Beatles' "Here Comes the Sun"—became the shortest album ever to top the British chart. In 2013 Barlow rejoined The X Factor panel; later that year Polydor released his fourth studio set, Since I Saw You Last. It climbed to number two, blocked from first place only by One Direction's Midnight Memories, and lead single "Let Me Go" matched that position.

Subsequent seasons found Barlow turning more toward musical theater. He first collaborated with Eliot Kennedy on 22 songs for a revised Finding Neverland that opened on Broadway in 2015. That same year premiered The Girls, co-written with Tim Firth, the co-creator of the 2013 film Calendar Girls from which the show derived. It transferred to the West End in 2017 before touring the U.K. and Ireland. In 2016 Barlow began filming his talent series Let It Shine, broadcast by the BBC in 2017; the format sought five men to headline a later Firth-penned production based on Take That songs and titled The Band.

2018 saw the release of Barlow's forthright autobiography A Better Me, paired with his first U.K. solo tour in years, deliberately booked in smaller halls. Later in 2019 he recorded the theme for the children's animated series The Adventures of Paddington. During the early COVID-19 lockdown he initiated The Crooner Sessions, featuring remote collaborations with artists including Brian May, Chris Martin, and All Saints. In September 2020 he unveiled the Latin-infused "Elita," the initial single from his richly orchestrated fifth album, Music Played by Humans. Issued November 27, 2020, the record entered the U.K. charts at number one.