Frank Wilson’s addictive stomper Do I Love You (Yes I Do) is considered an all-time Northern Soul classic today. But it remained unreleased for 14 years after it was recorded.

The song became a cult sensation long after Wilson’s work as a songwriter and producer put him on Motown’s music map – thanks only to a collector finding one of the only two copies of the single.

The Texas-born Wilson had started out as a gospel singer with a group called The Angelaires in Los Angeles but switched to secular music after hearing Brenda Holloway.

He released a string of singles under his own name and a variety of pseudonyms, including Sonny Daye, Eddie Wilson and Chester St Anthony, without success.

When Motown boss Berry Gordy Jr launched a new West Coast branch of the label, Wilson began writing, producing and recording demo vocals for local talent, and in 1965 recorded one of his own songs, Do I Love You (Yes I Do).

The label pressed up 250 promotional copies but before its release Wilson travelled to Detroit to meet Gordy who was underwhelmed by his vocals, and asked him to choose between being a writer-producer and a recording artist.

Wilson chose the former and his single’s release was cancelled, with all the promo singles being destroyed apart from two 45s, which were kept in office files. A second version, with a different singer – Chris Clark – singing over the old backing track, was recorded and shelved.

In 1966 he moved to Detroit to work as an in-house writer-producer for Motown, working with Marvin Gaye, The Miracles, The Temptations, The Four Tops, The Supremes and (after she left the group) Diana Ross.

And that might well have been that were it not for one of those two promo singles from 1965 coming into the hands of a collector just as the Northern Soul scene was booming in Britain, spotlighting rare and unknown recordings. 

The collector bootlegged Wilson’s single and released it in 1977, trying to disguise the song’s true identity – because he did not own the rights – by crediting it to a West Coast singer called Eddie Foster. 

The mystery track almost immediately became popular at Wigan Casino, spreading like wildfire around other Northern Soul clubs, and in 1979 by Tamla Motown finally released the official version  of Wilson’s first – and last – solo single.

By then he had left Motown and become a Baptist minister, returning to gospel music, while his song went on to be reissued – with Clark’s version on the B-side – and in 2009 a copy of the original single sold for a staggering £25,000.

Although Wilson went on to produce a Grammy-winning album by The Mighty Clouds Of Joy, he has gone on record as saying he always considered this song to be one of his life’s greatest achievements. He died in 2012.