THEY have been together for nearly 40 glorious years.

The story of the Blues Band began with a phone call from Hampshire born blues singer and harmonica player Paul Jones.

He was the frontman of sixties super group Manfred Mann ¬ which was The Concorde’s resident band before it rocketed to chart fame.

Their first hit was 5-4-3-2-1 which became the signature tune for TV’s pioneering pop show Ready, Steady, Go with that legendary opening line of the weekend starts here!

And Paul, who is also an actor and radio presenter, will be back at the Eastleigh club with The Blues Band tomorrow.

After that phone call Paul linked up with fellow Manfred star, Tom McGuinness, who started out with Eric Clapton in the Roosters.

As members of The Manfreds, Paul and Tom still carry on that great Manfred Mann tradition.

But The Blues Band is also an important part of their lives.

They knew the right people to make their idea for a band “just to play the blues” work and brought in legendary slide guitar man and singer Dave Kelly, who enlisted talented bassist Gary Fletcher.

As the saying goes, the rest is history. But it has been packed with TV and film appearances, a stadium tour with Dire Straits and more than 20 albums. Within a few years the band’s deep, well-tended roots had brought them the status of lasting legends.