The “Golden Hits Of The 70s”
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DENISE LASALLE
“TRAPPED BY A THING CALLED LOVE”
(DENISE LASALLE)
Westbound 182
No. 13 October 30, 1971
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Born in LeFlore County, Mississippi, on July 16, 1939, Denise Craig had early childhood ambitions of
becoming a fiction writer. At age 15, after moving to Chicago to live with her brother, Denise was delighted
when TAM, a magazine of black culture, bought one of her stories. Only rejection slips followed, but Craig
(who changed her name to “LaSalle” in order to sound French) was not one to be defeated easily.
Denise turned to songwriting, and in 1968, she started recording for Billy “The Kid” Emerson’s Tarpon
label. Neither ”A Love Reputation” nor its follow up, “Count Down,” charted. In 1969, she set up her own
production company, signed artists, wrote tunes for them, and recorded them in Willie Mitchell’s Memphis
studio. That same year, she also met her husband-to-be, Bill “Super Wolf” Jones, then a DJ on Memphis’
WDXI.
While she was hitless herself, Denise produced R & B hits like Bill Coday’s “Get Your Lie Straight” and the
Sequins’ “Hey Romeo.” Magazine editors had turned down her writing, but now LITTLE MILTON, ANN
PEEBLES, and others were seeking her out and recording her tunes. Encouraged by her behind-the-
scenes success, Denise walked into a recording studio to lay down some tracks with her voice up front.
“Heartbreaker of the Year,” released on her own Crajon label, did not chart, but Westbound Records
signed her, and one of the tracks from her first session secured her a place in rock and soul history.
“Trapped by a Thing Called Love” caught a large audience, hit number one on the R & B charts, and gave
Denise the hellfire-loving image she has to this day. A sassy, gritty singer, Denise told a Blues & Soul
reporter that she likes her music “mean, down-home, and funky.” The flip side of”Trapped” was the
suggestively titled “The Deeper I Go the Better It Gets.” Trailing that ditty by a year was “A Man Sized Job”
(#55, 1972), on which Denise informs her former lover that he “left his job half done” and that she’s now
with a younger dude. Her next release continued the theme: in “What It Takes to Get a Good Woman,” she
sings that “You can’t start out a loverman and wind up being a sleeper.”
Denise has said that despite her racy innuendoes, she is ladylike and a feminist of sorts.
“Maybe it isn’t the kind of stereotype of femininity that women have been tagged with. And maybe it isn’t
that sweet delicate, fragile, gentle image of womanhood that a lot of people still envision. But it’s a new
side of women–it portrays a strength that has never been portrayed before. Women aren’t just housewives
any longer . .. they are out there fighting and standing up for their rights. That’s the kind of woman that
Millie [Jackson] and I are portraying–the woman of today who won’t be no doormat.”
Denise’s R & B charting continued into the mid ’80s. Reportedly, she owns and runs radio WFXX in
Jackson, Tennessee.