Another Delta R&B and blues legend has left the stage.
Singer, songwriter and record producer, Denise LaSalle passed away at around 11 p.m. on Monday night in a Jackson, Tenn. hospital.
Her nephew, the Rev. Morris Allen of Belzoni said the 83-year-old vocalist died of complications derived from an above-the-knee amputation that took place in late October, early November. The health issues that led to the amputation are believed to have begun with a fall LaSalle suffered.
LaSalle was born near Sidon but moved to Belzoni with her parents when she was an adolescent. She reportedly left Humphreys County for Chicago in 1953 and grew in fame and notoriety, renowned as the Queen of the Blues for such hits as “Trapped by a Thing Called Love.”
She was most recently a headliner at the 2017 Mississippi Delta Blues and Heritage Festival in Greenville on September 16. Allen said she had already been in the hospital for a month just prior to attending that, and she got out of the hospital on Friday, performed at the concert on Saturday and had to re-enter the hospital after returning home on Sunday.
Allen said LaSalle was then referred to a specialist at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville and because of an infection in her right leg had to have the amputation.
From there she spent several weeks in a rehabilitation center where she suffered several falls, one he said while reaching for something from her wheelchair.
The falls resulted in her being again assigned to a hospital and a subsequent return to a rehabilitation center in her hometown of Jackson. He said she had been there for approximately three weeks and was showing progress, “I had just talked to her Sunday,” he said. But the singer had to be taken to a hospital on Monday because the infection had apparently spread to her lungs, heart and brain. He said she died peacefully.
LaSalle, born July 16, 1934 as Ora Denise Allen, was the youngest girl of eight children born to Nathan and Nancy Allen according to her onlyliving sister, Naomi Pruitt. Their baby brother passed away in November just before Thanksgiving and Pruitt said LaSalle was unable to attend the service because she was in the hospital.
She is also survived by her husband, former disc jockey James Wolfe and his three offspring, one of which, Bridgette Wolfe Edwards has been LaSalle’s chauffer, driving her to and from engagements for more than 10 years. LaSalle also had a child that she raised, but no biological children according to Allen.
Allen and Pruitt said LaSalle made a point of coming back to Belzoni as often as she could to see her parents who lived there until their death and to perform, especially when she was on tour.
Allen said LaSalle loved God, her church and family, “When family didn’t call to check on her, she called to check on them,” he said. Allen said LaSalle always tried to make sure she contacted her family whenever she was performing near them so they could all come together, “She just loved family,” he said, and added that whenever he and his wife visited her in Tennessee, they always attended church services with her.
“The blues was a career, but her life was Christian,” he said, she never started any of her performances without prayer. Allen admitted that her performances might have been intended for adult audiences but “She was truly a woman of God, that sang the blues,” he said.
In addition to her many R&B and blues hits, LaSalle also produced a multi-track Gospel CD entitled, God’s Got My Back. She was inducted into the Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame in 2015.
