Now Voyager | ||||
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Studio album by Barry Gibb | ||||
Released | September 1984 | |||
Recorded | 1984 at Criteria Studios, Miami, Florida May 1984 at Ocean Way, Los Angeles, California |
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Length | 47:53 | |||
Label |
Polydor (United Kingdom) MCA (United States) |
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Producer | Barry Gibb, Karl Richardson | |||
Barry Gibb chronology | ||||
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Singles from Now Voyager | ||||
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Now Voyager is the second solo album to be recorded by Barry Gibb, although it was his first to be released. Gibb had recorded an entire album in 1970 called The Kid's No Good, which never received official release. The album contains his biggest hits "Shine, Shine" and "Fine Line". The album also included the Olivia Newton-John duet "Face to Face", which was released as a promo single. In 1986, Gibb recorded his third solo album Moonlight Madness, which remains unreleased, leaving Now Voyager his only officially released album until 2016's In the Now. Gibb co-produced the album with Karl Richardson, who worked with the Bee Gees from 1975 to 1981. Richardson worked with Barry until 1986, his last project with Barry being Moonlight Madness.
Gibb finally released his second solo album Now Voyager as he explained:
"It's something I always wanted to do, but I never quite felt confident enough to do it. The man who was really made me think seriously about it was Irving Azoff, who convinced me that there was possibly a market out there for me. As unhappy about it was we were at the time, we now appreciate why it didn't do well. We worked nine months on that album. That's crazy. I think you lose energy by doing that. The message has to be that we really can't take so long making albums. The business doesn't like to see its artists get too hot. I think the same thing may apply to Michael [Jackson]. As talented as the guy is, people will only hear something so many times and then they're ready for something else."
Keyboardist George Bitzer co-wrote songs on this album (except songs 4 and 10) as well as Barry's brothers Maurice co-wrote "I Am Your Driver", "Lesson in Love", "Temptation" and "The Hunter" and Robin also on the "The Hunter". Barry himself wrote two songs for the album "Shatterproof" and "She Says".
This album sounded like a Bee Gees album minus the harmonies of Robin and Maurice Gibb and throughout most of it, danceable rhythms and synthesizer work were noticeable. An example was the song "Fine Line". This album actually did better commercially than the most recent Bee Gees 1981 album Living Eyes. He started to record demos in August 1983 with the track "I Wanna Go Home with You", and he continued to record from November to December 1983, with the songs "Face to Face", "The Hunter", "Fine Line", "One Night (For Lovers)" and "Illusions". The musicians who played on the demos were Maurice Gibb on guitar, bass and synthesizer, and George Bitzer on piano and synthesizer.