TV presenters, radio DJs and music fans are all too guilty these days of casually referring to many artists as legends, when in truth, most have hardly earned the label. It is a tag that is bandied about with little thought given to what it actually takes to warrant such a title but with respect to soul diva Gladys Knight, her status as a music legend is fully deserved and has been justifiably earned during her career that now spans over fifty years of performing.

Gladys Knight, like most other black female singers of her ilk and era, started out by singing gospel music in church at a tender age – Knight was just four years old. She later became part of the wonderful stable of singers and groups that ‘worked’ at the greatest and most productive music ‘factory’ there has ever been, Motown Records in Detroit, Michigan. There, along with her backing singers group, The Pips, she emerged as a bona fide legend amongst a host of others such as Stevie Wonder, The Four Tops, The Temptations, Marvin Gaye, The Supremes and The Jackson Five as the classic pop hits rolled off the ‘production line’ at a phenomenal rate year after year.

Now seventy-three, Knight brought her current concert tour to Manchester just the other week for a performance at the city's Apollo theatre and, if this is to be her touring swansong, she succeeded in leaving all those who witnessed her show with some magical memories to take away and confirmed her status as music royalty.

The concert, as you would expect, was an ultra slick, glitzy affair, full of humour and interesting anecdotes with Knight connecting with her audience with effortless ease and in return, she received waves of affection from the crowd and thunderous applause after each and every song. Over the ensuing ninety minutes, Miss Knight proceeded to take her fans on a musical journey that stopped at all the key stages of her remarkable career. She joked that many of the songs she originally performed and recorded probably long before many of her audience were even born and glancing around the crowd that did indeed seem to be the case for the Motown ‘sound’ in particular has always seduced all age groups and demographics.

From a stirring rendition of 'Baby, Don't Change Your Mind' and an equally rousing 'You're The Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me' through to a glorious performance of 'The Way We Were', which earned a long standing ovation and, a powerhouse delivery of 'Licence To Kill', her Bond theme song of the same name, it was a set list peppered with so many instantly recognisable songs with Knight demonstrating that the passage of time has in no way diminished her vocal ability. In fact, were she to appear on a show such as X Factor at her now mature age, she’d still blow all comers off the stage with that voice.

The show also included a nice little Prince medley, an artist who Knight clearly much admired but it was left to ‘Midnight Train To Georgia', the singer's signature tune, to bring the show to a glorious end. Surprisingly and yes, a little disappointingly, the house lights came on without any encore following but hey, what Knight gave the crowd was very special and I suppose she did have that train to catch, though I was not aware you could get a 23.59 to Georgia from Manchester Piccadilly.