LaSalle's best-known songs were "Trapped by a Thing Called Love", "I'm So Hot" and "Down Home Blues".

[6] She was raised in Belzoni from age seven[9] and sang in church choirs for local gospel groups around Leflore County.

[11] Her song "Trapped By a Thing Called Love" (1971) was released on Detroit-based Westbound Records.

But the voice is there—sensual, warm, even wise, ideal for [producer] Willie Mitchell's meditative Memphis funk.

"[13] She also wrote successful follow-ups, "Now Run and Tell That" and "Man Sized Job", which made #3 and number 4 in the R&B top ten and also charted in the Hot 100.

She continued to record for Malaco for 15 years, and released a string of critically acclaimed albums, starting with Lady in the Street (1983) and Right Place, Right Time (1984).

[11] LaSalle has in interviews stated that during the Westbound and ABC/MCA years she was free to record any song she liked, but at Malaco she was more limited.

[17] After the Malaco years, LaSalle started her own label Ordena, and released a few albums, including God's Got My Back which is a gospel album, and This Real Woman (2-CD set) which is a mixture of everything, it includes country, R&B, blues and pop.

[19] LaSalle lived with her husband, James E. Wolfe, in Jackson, where she opened a restaurant called Blues Legend Café.

[1] LaSalle and Craig were together for only a short time, but did not formally end the marriage until right before she married her second husband, Bill Jones, in 1969.

After suffering from heart problems, and with complications from a fall having resulted in her right leg being amputated in October 2017, LaSalle died surrounded by her family, at the age of 83,[2] on January 8, 2018.