The classic 1960s soul music of Memphis and the Stax record label are in the spotlight Friday through Sunday as Grammy Award-winning jazz vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater returns for an encore engagement at Blue Note Hawaii, as part of the nightclub’s Jazz Legends series.

One of the biggest things Bridgewater has done since her Blue Note Hawaii debut two years ago is to record and release a collection of 13 of her favorite soul, blues and gospel songs from the 1960s. Bridgewater will be doing all of them at the Blue Note, and with six musicians including a two-man horn section, and two backing vocalists, she is going to be doing them right.

“When people come to my shows, I say, ‘Welcome to my party. This is my party for me. You’re all invited but it’s my party, so you can’t go asking me to do anything else,” Bridgewater said Monday morning, taking a call from the hotel where she was enjoying a one-week vacation in Hawaii. She leaves Monday for shows in Seattle and California before returning home to New Orleans.

The name of the album is “Memphis… Yes, I’m Ready.” Copies will be available for sale at the Blue Note on Friday.

“Basically, I did this album for me,” Bridgewater continued. “It came at a time when my mother was transitioning and I wanted something that would be fun, something that could be healing for me, something that could allow me to just shake off my blues and my mourning.

“Also, I wanted to draw attention to Memphis and get people to remember the wonderfulness of Memphis, and Stax and Hi records, and the whole period, because it’s kinda been overlooked.”

Although Bridgewater was born in Memphis, her family moved north when she was 3, and she grew up in Flint, Mich. She reconnected with Memphis and its music through famed Memphis radio station WDIA, the first station in the nation with an all-black program format.

Memphis was the home of Stax Records, its sister label, Volt Records, and a long list of soul, blues and gospel artists.

When the time came to record the project, the only place to do it was Memphis.

“These are all songs that I heard on WDIA. There was no big mystery to the selection, but I tried to pick songs that I thought would flow together,” Bridgewater said.

She has a story for each song. “They all have little reasons for being there,” she said.

“The song that got me started with that radio station when I found the station as a young teenager was ‘Giving Up,’ by Gladys Knight & the Pips,” she said. “‘The Thrill Is Gone’ — I had to do it, because that was for B.B. King. I really miss B.B. He was someone very special to me and very, very, very important in my career throughout the years; so that one had to be there.

“I do Big Mama Thornton’s version of ‘Hound Dog’ because a lot of people don’t know that that song was written for her,” Bridgewater said. (Thornton recorded “Hound Dog” in 1952, while Elvis Presley turned the song into a worldwide hit in 1956.)

Bridgewater continued, “I really wanted to honor Otis Redding, and I thought ‘Try a Little Tenderness’ is a little daring, but I like to challenge myself, and so that’s why that one was included.”

THE BIGGEST surprise for Motown fans may be Bridgewater’s recording of “I Can’t Get Next to You” in the style of Al Green’s Memphis soul arrangement of the song. Green did his version as a track for an album on 1971, but his label never released it as a single. Most listeners will be more familiar with the Temptations’ chart-topping 1969 hit.

“A lot of people know it as a Temptations song, but my version has nothing to do with Motown,” Bridgewater acknowledged, adding that she hopes her recording will put a fresh spotlight on Green and his style.

She credits her co- producer, Kirk Whalum, with an imaginative arrangement of “Don’t Be Cruel” that owes nothing to Elvis Presley’s definitive hit recording of 1956.

”I was inspired by a story I read about Elvis hearing that Wilson Pickett was singing ‘Don’t Be Cruel.’ He flew to Vegas to hear him do it, and Elvis then changed the way he performed the song live because he liked the way Wilson Pickett had done it.

“I could not find any recorded version of (Pickett’s) live performance, so I asked Kirk to come up with an arrangement. That’s Kirk’s arrangement of the song,” she said.

Bridgewater got an emotional boost during the recording sessions when Carla Thomas stopped by the studio, shortly after Bridgewater had finished mixing her remake of Thomas’ 1966 hit, “B-A-B-Y.” During the visit, Thomas shared some stories about the old days in Memphis.

Bridgewater has been trying to get in touch with three of the other women whose classics she’s recorded: Barbara Mason (“Yes I’m Ready”), Mavis Staples (“Why? (Am I Treated So Bad)”) and Ann Peebles (“I Can’t Stand the Rain”). Peebles retired after having a stroke in 2012; Mason and Staples are still performing.

“We have a lot of neo-soul going on now, and I want the kids to have the real reference to pull from,” Bridgewater said. “I think these songs are good representation of soul, of the soul period out of Memphis, and also the blues period.

“The show is a walk down memory lane for many of us, but I’ve found that when young people see the show, they are so blown away and so turned on by the music. My goal is to show people a good time and some good old soul and blues music.”