WHEN it comes to the music business these guys definitely are the Real Thing.

Vocalists Chris Amoo, Eddie Amoo and Dave Smith are marking an incredible 40 years in the business and now back together will be performing all the hits from The Real Thing as well as soul and funk classics from the likes of Kool and the Gang and Chic.

With three million selling hit singles including You To Me Are Everything, Can’t Get By Without You and Can You Feel The Force, the band’s brand of commercial sweet soul music, mixed with disco influences, established The Real Thing as one of the country’s best loved soul bands.

The band’s second album, 4 From Eight, originally to have been called Liverpool 8 in honour of the racially mixed, economically depressed neighbourhood in which they grew up, featured the Liverpool 8, Children of the Ghetto and Stanhope Street, bringing them media attention and a credibility denied to black groups at that time.

Children of the Ghetto would later be covered by soul diva Mary J Blige, Earth, Wind and Fire’s Philip Bailey and Jazz musician Courtney Pine.

With the band’s origins in the Merseybeat boom of the Sixties, lead singer Eddie Amoo formed The Real Thing with brother Chris Ammo, Ray Lake and Dave Smith.

Spotted by an ex-Radio Luxembourg DJ, Tony Hall, they signed to Pye Records in 1975 and with a song written and produced by Ken Gold and Mick Denne, The Real Thing had their first hit in 1976 when You To Me Are Everything sailed to the top of the UK singles chart.

The band went on to have a further nine hits over a three year period but that wasn’t to be the end of their commercial success.

In 1986 You To Me Are Everything, Can’t Get By Without You and Can You Feel The Force were all remixed and became huge hits once again, thanks to their huge club following, and then most recently in 2005, Love's Such a Wonderful Thing was sampled by French dance outfit Daft Punk the same year the Freeloaders had a UK Top 10 single with So Much Love to Give.

• The Real Thing Mercury Theatre, Balkerne Gate, Colchester.

Friday, November 6. 7.30pm.

£22. 01206 573948.

www.mercurytheatre.co.uk