Love Me Right

"Love Me Right" by Denise LaSalle

Step into the early months of 1978, when soul music was being pulled in two directions at once: toward the shimmering, orchestrated pull of disco on one side, and back toward the gritty, lived-in storytelling of Southern soul on the other. Denise LaSalle stood firmly in that second camp, a singer and songwriter who built her reputation on plain-spoken songs about grown-up love and its complications. "Love Me Right" is a small chapter in that long, dignified career, a single that brushed the Hot 100 without ever climbing high.

The Queen of Southern Soul

Denise LaSalle was no newcomer in 1978. She had scored a major hit earlier in the decade with "Trapped by a Thing Called Love," a song that established her as one of the most distinctive voices in soul. What set her apart was that she wrote much of her own material, a rarity for women in the genre at the time, and she filled those songs with the perspective of an adult woman who had seen a few things. By the late seventies she was a fixture on the rhythm-and-blues circuit, beloved by audiences who wanted soul with substance.

The Sound of the Record

"Love Me Right" carries the warmth of classic Southern soul, the kind of sound rooted in the studios of the American South. The arrangement leans on a steady, unhurried groove, with horns and a tight rhythm section framing LaSalle's voice rather than overwhelming it. Her vocal is the centerpiece, conversational and full of character, the sound of someone telling you a story across a kitchen table. There is grit in it, and humor, and a refusal to oversell. The result is a record that feels honest and earthy at a moment when much of the charts had gone glossy.

A Modest Chart Visit

The Billboard numbers tell a quiet story. "Love Me Right" debuted on the Hot 100 on January 14, 1978, at number 95, and it inched upward slowly across the following weeks. It reached its peak position of number 80 on March 11, 1978. The single hung around the lower rungs of the chart for a while, with a total of ten weeks on the Hot 100, a longer stay than many records ever manage even if it never broke into the upper tiers. For LaSalle, whose strongest connection was always with the R&B audience, the pop chart was never the full measure of her success.

Soul at a Crossroads

The early months of 1978 found soul music pulled between competing futures. Disco was ascendant, dominating radio and clubs with its sleek, four-on-the-floor pulse, and many established soul artists felt pressure to chase that sound or risk irrelevance. LaSalle largely held her ground in the earthier Southern soul tradition, trusting her core audience over passing trends. That choice cost her some crossover potential on the pop chart, where glossier productions ruled, but it preserved the authenticity that made her music special. A song like this one stands as a small act of resistance, a singer staying true to her roots while the mainstream rushed somewhere else.

A Career That Outlasted the Charts

LaSalle's legacy rests on far more than her pop chart numbers. She became known as a queen of the Southern soul and blues scene, recording for decades and remaining a beloved live performer well beyond her years of pop visibility. Her songwriting, frank and funny and unafraid of adult themes, influenced the soul-blues tradition that thrives in clubs and on regional radio to this day. "Love Me Right" is a window into that world. Give it a spin and listen for the warmth of a singer who never needed the spotlight to command a room.

"Love Me Right" — Denise LaSalle's singular moment on the 1970s charts.