The Very Best Of Willie Hutch

Through the first half of the '70s, and intermittently thereafter, Willie Hutch was the closest thing the Motown stable had to a Curtis Mayfield, from his cool, guitar-and-percussion based soul numbers (and the strings that sweetened them) on down to his cap and shades. An ace songwriter who'd cowritten "I'll Be There" for the Jackson 5, he followed Mayfield's path into scoring movies--Foxy Brown and The Mack (for which he wrote the enduring "Brother's Gonna Work It Out")--but his voice was earthier, more in the Sam Cooke tradition, and his lyrics were more concerned with the redemptive power of love than with street terror. This smart career condensation also jumps forward for his '82 dance-floor semi-hit "In and Out." --Douglas Wolk