Few Liverpool bands can claim a story quite like The Real Thing. From growing up in Toxteth to becoming the first Black British group to score a UK number one, their career spans more than five decades, some of Britain’s best-loved soul records and a catalogue that has continued to find new audiences in unexpected places.
For the latest episode of Misadventures in Music, Chris Amoo sits down with Ian Prowse and Mick Ord for a wonderfully open conversation about the journey behind it all.
And Chris is a natural storyteller.
There are tales of Opportunity Knocks, suddenly being recognised on Bold Street, the arrival of ‘You to Me Are Everything’, encounters with some extraordinary musicians, songwriting battles, America, Mary J. Blige, Spike Lee, Daft Punk — and even the yodeller who brought The Real Thing back down to earth just one week after winning on national television.
But underneath the stories runs something much more important.
Liverpool.
Ask Chris how important Liverpool was to The Real Thing and the answer arrives almost immediately.
Growing up in Toxteth shaped the group musically, culturally and personally.
Chris recalls a Liverpool where records and fashions from America filtered into the city, where youth clubs provided places to perform and where his older brother Eddy Amoo, already making music with The Chants, showed him that becoming a professional musician might actually be possible.
It wasn’t until The Real Thing began travelling that Chris realised just how distinctive that Liverpool upbringing had been.
As he puts it during the conversation:
“Liverpool is what framed us and made us the type of people that we are.”
It is one of those comments that becomes a thread running through the entire episode.
🎧 Watch or listen to the full conversation with Chris Amoo on Misadventures in Music.
Opportunity Knocks — and what happened next
Long before The X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent, television talent shows could transform an unknown act into a household name almost overnight.
For The Real Thing, that programme was Opportunity Knocks.
They won.
Suddenly people knew who they were.
Chris remembers heading into Liverpool city centre afterwards in the band’s kaftans and being recognised as they walked along Bold Street.
But success on Opportunity Knocks came with an early lesson in how quickly showbusiness could change.
When Ian suggests they had “walked” the competition, Chris quickly corrects him.
The reason?
Let’s just say a yodeller enters the story.
It’s one of the funniest moments in the episode — and probably best heard from Chris himself.
When ‘You to Me Are Everything’ changed everything. Then came the record that transformed their career.
‘You to Me Are Everything’ took The Real Thing to number one in 1976 and became a song that has followed the band ever since.
It would be easy for a conversation covering 50 years of music to revolve entirely around that enormous success.
Instead, some of the most revealing moments arrive when Chris talks about what happened after the hits.
Chris and Eddy wanted to establish themselves as songwriters.
Inspired by artists including Marvin Gaye and Curtis Mayfield, they began writing about their own experiences and the Liverpool community around them.
That led to material including ‘Children of the Ghetto’ and the 4 from 8 album — songs that did not initially receive the attention Chris believed they deserved.
What happened to some of those songs many years later is one of the most satisfying parts of the podcast.
Chris Amoo’s Urbanista playlist
We also asked Chris to choose four tracks for his Urbanista playlist.
His selections give a pretty good indication of the musical world behind The Real Thing:
Bill Withers – ‘Lovely Day’
Marvin Gaye – ‘What’s Going On’
Curtis Mayfield – ‘We People Who Are Darker Than Blue’
Bill Withers – ‘Lonely Town, Lonely Street’
Listen to those alongside the conversation and some of the influences Chris describes become immediately apparent.
Listen to the full conversation
There is far more in this episode than we could sensibly fit into one article.
Chris talks candidly about The Real Thing’s beginnings, Opportunity Knocks, David Essex, reaching number one, America, writing with Eddy, the Liverpool 8 material, Mary J. Blige, Spike Lee, Daft Punk, life on the road and what could come next.
But perhaps the best part is simply hearing someone who has lived through more than five decades of British music telling those stories in his own way.
Chris Amoo joins Ian Prowse and Mick Ord on the latest episode of Misadventures in Music.
🎧 Watch the full episode above on Youtube or listen via Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
