Soul and blues star Denise LaSalle was born Denise Allen near Sidon in rural Leflore County on July 16, 1939, and spent much of her childhood in Belzoni. After moving to Chicago in her teens, she began writing songs and had the first of many self-penned hits in 1971 with the No. 1 R&B single “Trapped By a Thing Called Love.” Her direct and often provocative stage style also brought great success as a live performer. She also succeeded as a songwriter, producer, record label owner, and nightclub operator. Ora Denise Allen spent her early years on a plantation and around age seven or eight moved with her family to Belzoni, where they lived on Cain and Hayden streets. In the late 1940s she saw Elmore James and Sonny Boy Williamson No. 2 performing on radio programs broadcast from the Easy Pay furniture store downtown. She sang in church as a child and after moving to Chicago in her mid-teens worked with the gospel group The Sacred Five. At fifteen she sold stories to the magazines Tan and True Confessions, then began writing songs and changed her professional name to LaSalle because it “sounded French.” In 1967 she made her first recordings for Billy “The Kid” Emerson’s Tarpon label and had a minor hit with “A Love Reputation.” In 1969 LaSalle and her then-husband Bill Jones formed Crajon Enterprises, and her song “Get Your Lie Straight” became a major hit for Bill Coday on the Crajon label. In 1971-72 she gained national recognition with three Top Ten R&B singles on Westbound Records: “Trapped By a Thing Called Love,” “Now Run and Tell That,” and “Man Sized Job.” As later records on Westbound, ABC, and MCA continued to reach the charts, she also became known for her racy onstage persona and extended off-color raps on how women should please their men and vice versa. She credited her strong storytelling abilities to her lifelong love of country music, and her song “Married, But Not to Each Other” was covered by Barbara Mandrell. In 1984 she recorded the first in a long series of albums for Jackson-based Malaco Records. Nine of her Malaco albums in the 1980s and 1990s reached the national charts, as did the Malaco single “My Tu-Tu.” During this period she began to be marketed as a blues rather than R&B artist, and in 1986 she founded the National Association for the Preservation of the Blues to bring more attention to the soul/blues style. She also wrote songs for Z. Z. Hill, Ann Peebles, and Little Milton; Little Milton’s recording of the LaSalle-Mack Rice composition “Packed Up and Took My Man” was later sampled by Ghostface Killah. In 1997 LaSalle left Malaco after her husband, businessman and disc jockey James “Super” Wolfe, Jr., joined the ministry. She recorded a gospel album on her own Angel In the Midst label, then returned to the blues field with popular albums on her Ordena label and on Ecko Records. In 2008 she rejoined the Malaco Records roster.