The last two albums had been created by Winwood playing all the instruments himself at his technologically advanced Turkdean home studio "Netherturkdonic," but for his next project Winwood returned to working with other musicians for additional inspiration. He hired Los Angeleno Ron Weisner as manager, known for his work with Madonna and Michael Jackson. Weisner pushed Winwood to record in London rather than at his home, where he was having relationship difficulties with his wife, Nicole. Winwood agreed to the London suggestion, but Weisner responded, "Well, forget London. Maybe you should go to New York." Winwood was already acquainted with New York, having stayed at the Central Park South apartment of Chris Blackwell, the founder of Island Records. Blackwell had been serving as Winwood's quasi-manager for a few years, but Winwood was intent on moving in a new direction with Weisner. Weisner encouraged him to stop standing half-hidden behind the Hammond organ and accept his position as front man and entertainer. Winwood said in 1988, "I made a conscious effort to start working with musicians and producers and engineers. I got a manager. I have to say that those people are directly or indirectly responsible for my success now." Between sessions for Back in the High Life, Winwood booked another studio, where he scored synthesizer-based music for the documentary The High Life, about the 1985 Tour de France experience of Scottish bicycle racer Robert Millar (later known as Philippa York). The documentary was produced by ITV Granada; it aired in the weeks leading up to the 1986 Tour de France, in which Millar competed. Writing Songwriting for the album began after Talking Back was released. Winwood wrote his own music but he usually relied on other lyricists. He collaborated again with Texan Will Jennings, a professor of English who had written the words to Winwood's song "While You See a Chance", a hit single in 1981. For this new project, Winwood's fourth solo album, the pair composed five more songs, two of which would become the biggest album hits: "Higher Love" and "Back in the High Life Again". Jennings carried the phrase "Back in the High Life" around as a song title idea written down in a notebook, but when he was at Winwood's house in late 1984 he wrote the rest of the lyric in a half hour, without any music. More than a year afterward, Winwood finally wrote