Denise LaSalle has reigned as the Queen of the Blues on the Southern soul circuit for years, famed for her many self-penned hits as well as her bold and bawdy stage act. LaSalle, born Ora Denise Allen on a Sidon, Mississippi, plantation, on July 16, 1939, spent some of her childhood in Belzoni, a town that continues to bring her back home for festivals and tributes. She showed her writing talents as a teen when she wrote stories for True Confessions and Tan. A gospel singer at first, Allen chose LaSalle as her stage name when she started singing rhythm & blues in Chicago. Blues singer Billy “The Kid” Emerson recorded her debut for his Tarpon label in 1967, and LaSalle had a No. 1 R&B single with “Trapped By A Thing Called Love” on Westbound in 1971. More hits followed, as did the development of her spicy onstage language. LaSalle moved to Jackson, Tennessee, in 1977, and in the 1980s began a long tenure with Malaco Records of Jackson, Mississippi, at first writing songs such as the Z.Z. Hill favorite “Someone Else is Steppin’ In.” With her own Malaco recordings she came to be marketed as a blues singer for the first time, and she quickly established herself as an important figure on the chittlin’ circuit. In 1986 she founded the National Association for the Preservation of the Blues to recognize artists performing in the Southern soul/blues style, a genre often overlooked by mainstream and traditional blues media. In recent years, LaSalle has recorded gospel as well as blues and soul.
Denise LaSalle passed away in January 2018.