Tobi Legend stamped her mark on music history when her obscure demo recording Time Will Pass You By became a Northern Soul anthem.

This is arguably the greatest ever Northern Soul tune: recorded by an unknown backing singer and released without her approval in 1968.

Tobi Legend’s emotion-filled Time Will Pass You By was one of the “Three Before Eight” played at the end of those legendary all-nighters at Wigan Casino as dawn broke.

Now the Northern Soul scene, which began life as a working-class northern phenomenon in the Seventies, soundtracked by obscure Sixties soul tracks like this, is not just enduring, but enjoying a revival.

A new generation of younger fans is reviving those sweaty dance moves at thriving club nights all over the country – not just in the north, but new hotspots like Bristol, as related in Alan Ryan’s new documentary, Northern Soul: Still Burning.

Tobi Legend (born Bessie Grace Gupton in Alabama 1941) started singing as a child in her mother’s gospel choir, before moving to Detroit where she was a backing singer for artists including BB King and Wilson Pickett, The Four Tops and Ben E King, Duke Ellington and Cannonball Adderley.

She cut her first record under the name Bessie Watson in 1963. She was backed on Deed I Do by the Cannonball Adderley Quintet, and made two more RnB singles, I’m In Your Corner and Wake Up Crying, before changing her name to Tobi Lark.

In the mid-Sixties she separated from her husband and moved to Canada with her young son, playing a lead role in a Toronto production of Hair, but went back to Detroit in 1968 to record Time Will Pass You By, written by English-born songwriter and record producer John Rhys Eddins with Nick Zesses and Dino Fekaris.

It was released by the small Mala record label who put it out and changed her name – without her approval – to Tobi Legend, but it was a flop until it was rediscovered by Northern Soul DJs crate-digging for obscure Sixties soul singles.

Tobi continued to record and had a minor hit in Canada in 1970 with a gospel song called We’re All In This Together, recorded live with a choir in a Toronto church – church organ and all – and released under the name Toronto Together in 1970.