The Real Thing

Northern soul was already taking root across northern England by the time the Real Thing came together in 1970, yet the Liverpool-based disco, funk, and soul foursome showed little interest in the scene’s rarer R&B discoveries. Instead they gravitated toward the more expansive soul of the Temptations, Barry White, and extended funk grooves. The local musicians dreamed of worldwide recognition, an ambition that remained out of reach. Founding members Chris Amoo, Dave Smith, Kenny Davis, and Ray Lake launched their career by reworking well-known American sides, a strategy that paid unexpected dividends when Frankie Valli and other artists later covered their chart-topping British single “You to Me Are Everything.” A second straight British Top Ten placing arrived with “Can’t Get By Without You.”

Their first break arrived at EMI Records, where they recorded the single “Plastic Man” backed by their version of Tavares’ “Check It Out.” The release failed to unlock broader opportunities, though the group stayed busy on the club circuit. Subsequent EMI efforts such as “Listen Joe McGintoo” and “Vicious Circles” drew scant attention. For reasons never made public, Davis departed, leaving the Real Thing to continue as a trio that supplemented its income with advertising work and live dates. Momentum built once David Essex took over production of their early Pye sessions. Touring alongside Essex carried them across Britain and even into the United States, the very country whose music had shaped their sound. Those first collaborations with Essex became radio favorites without translating into strong sales. Around the same period, Amoo’s brother Eddie—who had previously sung with the Chants on Pye—joined the lineup. The Liverpool-raised siblings, whose parents were Ghanaian, began penning original material that filled out the group’s albums. One of those compositions, “In the Sky,” was later recorded by Loose Ends for their 1980 Virgin Records debut.

A partnership with producer Ken Gold yielded immediate results when “You to Me Are Everything” topped the British pop chart, reached number 66 on the U.S. pop listing, and climbed to number 29 on the soul chart. The debut album, simply titled The Real Thing, collected both the recent hits and earlier singles. For the follow-up, the band hoped to use Liverpool 8, the name of the racially mixed neighborhood where they had grown up alongside Asian, African, Chinese, and Irish residents. Pye rejected the title, so the compromise Four From Eight was adopted instead. Over the years the Real Thing issued four albums for Pye, among them Step Into Our World and Can You Feel the Force. PRT Records released the 1982 collection 100 Minutes, the group’s final regularly issued studio album. A live recording, The Real Thing Live, appeared on Waxworks Records in 1998, while numerous compilations have kept their catalog available.