Denise LaSalle and Satisfaction - Guaranteed (1981) Vinyl

Unlike many blues vocalists who simply reinterpret material given to them by composers, Denise LaSalle was a seriously talented songwriter. Although her soul-blues style had strong urban contemporary overtones at times, it's best to think of LaSalle as a modern-day Bessie Smith, because that's really what she was.

She wrote funny songs full of sassy attitude, and it's an attitude she carried with her on-stage. Off-stage, LaSalle accommodated all autograph seekers and gladly obliged journalists and radio disc jockeys. The Jackson, Tennessee-based LaSalle was raised in Belzoni, Mississippi (also home to Joe Willie PineTop Perkins some years earlier), but she got started singing in local churches around Leflore County.

She was born July 16, 1939, as Denise Craig. Growing up, she listened to Grand Ole Opry radio broadcasts, and then lived across the street from a juke joint in Belzoni. LaSalle's early influences, from the jukeboxes around Belzoni and over the radio, included Ruth Brown, Dinah Washington, and LaVern Baker.