Etta James – Nobody Loves You Like Me/ Tough Lover

Something we love to do with the Jukebox Jam series is unleash certain forgotten, neglected or simply unissued R&B sides on 45rpm vinyl for the very first time. And so we turn our attention to our latest release, which see’s Etta James’ wonderful ‘Nobody Loves You Like Me’ finally released on our cherished 7” format. Cut in the mid-50s for Modern Records, the recording was inexplicably shelved, perhaps because it didn’t quite fit with the straight ahead jivers and ballads which formed the young Miss James’ other output for the label. Because this is neither ballad, nor rocker, but in fact an enchanting, moody, mid-tempo blues which would conceivably be categorized as Popcorn nowadays – only back then that term was simply something you munched at the drive-in – the popular dance hadn’t even been invented yet, let alone the retrospective Belgian music scene!

Famously, Etta James left Modern in the late 50s to find major fame and glory as the Chicago based Chess Records first star of Soul music in the early 60s. To cash in on that success, Modern quickly churned out a compilation of her masters from her brief tenure there, which included the previously unheard ‘Nobody…’ The LP itself is a pretty squalid item, it’s poorly pressed and packaged, and presumably Modern had lost all image rights as the sleeve artwork features a completely different lady standing under the title ‘The Best Of Etta James’. The release did get one thing right though, for amongst her many-jewelled back catalogue, ‘Nobody Loves Me’ is indeed one of Etta’s best, even if it lies very low under the shadow of such vast and opulent 60s hits as ‘At Last’.

As this was never issued on Modern, and never before on 45rpm, we have opted, with permission, to use the original Modern logo. On the flip, we have a recording appearing on vinyl for the very first time, an alternate take of the jiving rocker ‘Tough Lover’.