by Richard Skelly & Al Campbell
Unlike so many other blues vocalists who just re-interpret 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, its best to think of LaSalle as a modern-day Bessie Smith, because thats really what she is. She writes funny songs full of sassy attitude and its 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. LaSalles 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 Mixers 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 whod 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.
LaSalles 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 labels 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 Theres No Separation (2001) on Ordena Records