Many Beatles tribute albums have saturated the market, but how many compilations can boast Isaac “Shaft” Hayes performing a 12-minute version of The Beatles’ “Something?”  That single is just one example from Stax Does The Beatles, a compilation featuring famous and little-known Stax artists.

The Memphis label, whose roster included Otis Redding, Booker T & The MGs, The Bar Kays, and Hayes, integrated rock with a distinctly southern soul style, producing a more raw sound than the more polished Motown recordings.  In the late 60s and early 70s, many Stax artists declared themselves Beatles fans, going so far as to record covers for various albums.  This new CD collects the best of these songs, some of which have never been previously released.

Highlights include an alternate take of Otis Redding’s “Day Tripper,” where he gives the song a James Brown-like makeover.  David Porter, Hayes’ songwriting partner, had a lower-profile solo career, but scores with a horn-driven, danceable cover of “Help.”  Steve Cropper, lead guitarist for Booker T & The MGs, performs a version of “With A Little Help from My Friends” that resembles Joe Cocker fused with Jimi Hendrix. 

Carla Thomas infuses “Yesterday” with bluesy emotion that stresses the deep regret expressed in the lyrics.  Booker T & the MGs recorded an entire Beatles tribute album, McLemore Avenue, and several of those cuts are represented here.  They lend a decidedly rock and slightly funkadelic edge to “Eleanor Rigby,” while the organ lends additional soul to “Lady Madonna.” 

Other songs illustrate The Beatles’ soul influences.  The Mar-Keys’ “Let It Be” turns the song into a church revival, featuring the organ and a killer saxophone solo.  John Gary Williams turns the technically non-Beatle “My Sweet Lord” into a gospel workout, a slower version of Billy Preston’s cover.  Perhaps the most logical cover is Booker T & the MG’s “Got to Get You into My Life,” a song that even Paul McCartney asserted was a homage to Motown.