I must admit, when I saw last February’s release of Soulsville Sings Hitsville: Stax Sings Songs of Motown Records, I sort of wondered, “Why?” Motown had to be Stax’s biggest competition on the soul music charts, along with Atlantic, I figured. So why would Stax sort of, even indirectly, promote Motown music?

Thank goodness for the blessing of hindsight because I think I get it, or at least part of it, now. It’s probably oversimplifying but I suspect that Stax wanted what Motown had - a near assembly line of critically and popularly acclaimed songwriting, star turns on The Ed Sullivan Show, and pop crossover success. So it makes sense to me that way: Stax figured that the best way to follow someone somewhere is to take the same path that they took to get there.

The remakes on Soulsville Sings Hitsville sound pleasantly enough different and yet the same, mainly because the respective spirits and soul sounds of both labels shine through. Margie Joseph’s reconstruction of “Stop! In the Name of Love” (The Supremes) opens up, the single edit from the version that opens her album Margie Joseph Makes a New Impression, which Stax historian Bob Bowman calls “Joseph’s finest moment during her tenure at Stax.” “Reach Out (I’ll Be There)” (The Four Tops & Diana Ross) thunders and flashes like the hammer of Thor in the hands of R&B instrumental gods The Mar-Keys.

Isaac Hayes produced this version of “I Don’t Know Why I Love You” for the solo album debut of his primary songwriting partner David Porter, rounding off the rough edges but losing little of Otis Redding’s incendiary vocal passion. “I Don’t Know Why I Love You” was the B-side to Stevie Wonder’s single “My Cherie Amour,” which Billy Eckstine covers later on Soulsville Sings Hitsville.

The next two tunes really do bring Hitsville to Soulsville, more specifically all the way down home to church. The Staple Singers’ gospel romp through “You’ve Got to Earn It” (The Temptations) was Pops Staples’ idea, even if it was led by Mavis’ hard and gritty vocal; this Al Bell production at Muscle Shoals earned #11 R&B single. Next, Calvin Scott infuses “Can I Get A Witness?” (Marvin Gaye) with house-quaking gospel power. In a way, Scott’s electrifying performance couldn’t have much less to do with Stax’s southern, Memphis soul; it was written by and for Detroit artists, and was produced by Motown vet Clarence Paul at Wolfman Jack Recording Studios in Los Angeles.

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