Denise LaSalle, Singer and Writer of Earthy Songs, Dies at 78
Denise LaSalle, a durable blues and soul singer and songwriter who in a half-century-long career delved in song into love, cheating, pleasure and heartache, mixing romance with raunchiness, died on Monday in Jackson, Tenn. She was 78.
She died in a hospital from complications of surgery, according to her longtime label, Malaco Records.
In October, Ms. LaSalle, who lived in Jackson, underwent a leg amputation resulting from complications after a fall. She never fully recovered.
Ms. LaSalle recorded blues, soul, gospel and even zydeco music. But at the core of her catalog were down-to-earth story-songs, written or chosen by Ms. LaSalle, that revolved around lust. She wrote hundreds of songs, among them “Your Husband Is Cheating on Us,” “Married, but Not to Each Other,” “I Wanna Do What’s on Your Mind” and “It’s Lying Time Again.”
In some of her songs, like “Snap, Crackle and Pop,” she gave explicit tips on sexual technique.
“Even before I started doing it on record, I was naughty but nice in person,” Ms. LaSalle told Blues Blast magazine in 2017. “It comes naturally. Because that’s the way life is.”
…in 1971 she wrote and sang the biggest hit of her career, the million-selling No. 1 R&B single “Trapped by a Thing Called Love.” It also reached No. 13 on the Billboard pop chart, her only Top 40 crossover in the United States.
She returned to the national R&B charts in the 1970s with songs including “Now Run and Tell That,” “Man Sized Job,” “Love Me Right” and “Married, but Not To Each Other,” a song that also became a country hit for Barbara Mandrell in 1977.
Ms. LaSalle moved to Tennessee, where she met the disc jockey James E. Wolfe Jr., who would found the radio station WFKX in Jackson. They married in 1977; he survives her, along with their children, Ray Kight, Dawn Beard and Bridgette Wolfe.
For more go to:
