MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Blues and soul music legend Denise LaSalle has died, according to multiple media sources and social media. She was 78.

LaSalle’s 1971 song “Trapped By a Thing Called Love” reached No. 1 on the R&B charts and No. 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. She continued her career with a string of successful singles through the 1970s and ’80s.

Many of her early hits were recorded with Willie Mitchell in Memphis at Royal Studios.
LaSalle was raised in Belzoni, Mississippi and died in Jackson, Tennessee.

She was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in Memphis and the Rhythm and Blues Hall of Fame.

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Bio from ALL MUSIC…

Unlike so many other blues vocalists who just reinterpret material given to them by songwriters, Denise LaSalle is a seriously talented songwriter. Although her soul blues style has strong urban contemporary overtones at times, it's best to think of
LaSalle as a modern-day Bessie Smith, because that's really what she is. She writes funny songs full of sassy attitude and it's an attitude she carries with her on-stage. Off-stage, LaSalle accommodates all autograph seekers and gladly obliges
journalists and radio disc jockeys.
The Jackson, TN-based LaSalle was raised in Belzoni, MS, (also home to Joe Willie "PineTop" Perkins some years earlier) but she got started singing in local churches around Leflore County. She was born July 16, 1939, as Denise Craig. Growing up, she
listened to the Grand Ole Opry radio broadcasts and then in Belzoni, lived across the street from a juke joint. LaSalle's early influences, from the jukeboxes around Belzoni and over the radio, included Ruth Brown, Dinah Washington, and LaVern Baker.
LaSalle moved north to Chicago when she was in her early twenties and would attend shows at the Regal Theatre, always returning home to write songs. She got to know blues musicians and began giving her songs to them, until one day a Chess Records
executive stopped by at Mixer's Lounge, where LaSalle was working as a bar maid. He listened to one of her songs and took it down to Chess Records, and the company later signed her as a vocalist, but never recorded her. Two years later, LaSalle recorded
and produced her own record with the help of Billy "The Kid" Emerson, the Chess executive who'd originally shown an interest in her. After the record made some waves on local radio, Chess stepped in and purchased the master and took it to Europe.
Meanwhile, LaSalle continued writing songs and sitting in with blues musicians around the Chicago clubs.

LaSalle's first big hit came about in 1971 when her "Trapped By a Thing Called Love" broke on the radio in Chicago and then Detroit. That record was for the Westbound label and then she signed with ABC Records in 1975, cutting three albums in three years
until the label was sold to MCA. After MCA dropped her because of the label's "difficulty in promoting black acts" at that time, she continued performing as much as she could in Chicago and Memphis. In 1980, a Malaco executive called to ask her to write
a song for Z.Z. Hill. A positive relationship with the company was quickly developed, which resulted in LaSalle recording 11 discs for the label, including Lady in the Street, (1983), Right Place, Right Time, (1984), Love Talkin', (1985), Hittin' Where
It Hurts, (1989), Still Trapped, (1990), Still Bad, (1994), and Smokin' in Bed (1997). While her Malaco sides are probably her most important recordings, other than the original of her early-'70s hit "Trapped," she still releases excellent gospel
crossover material, including This Real Woman (2000) and There's No Separation (2001) on Ordena Records and Little Bit Naughty (2008) on Shout.

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