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 started a European tour in February 1998 which featured him and music pure. And at the end of the European tour, he popped over to South America for a couple of shows which was a mega success.
Straight after the tour, Gary went back into the studio recording his second solo album on which he worked with producers Jon Mitchell (George Michael) and Grant Mitchell. Gary released his first single 'Stronger' in July 1999, followed by the release of the album 'Twelve Months, Eleven Days' on 11th October 1999.
