Singer and songwriter Denise LaSalle, whose hit "Trapped by a Thing Called Love" topped the R&B charts in 1971, has died. She was 78.

Musician and producer Lawrence "Boo" Mitchell, a close family friend of LaSalle's, said Tuesday that the singer died in Jackson, Tennessee.

Media outlets report LaSalle suffered from health issues in recent months that resulted in the amputation of her right leg after she suffered a fall.

Along with "Trapped by a Thing Called Love," she is also well known for the song "Now Run and Tell That." She had a string of successful singles in the 1970s and the early 1980s.

LaSalle, a Mississippi native, founded the National Association for the Preservation of the Blues to bring more attention to the "soul/blues" style in 1986.

She was a 2011 inductee in the Blues Hall of Fame in Memphis. Her citation for that year notes her "bold and bawdy stage act."

She was born Ora Denise Allen on a plantation in Sidon, Mississippi, plantation, and lived for a time in Belzoni as a child, the citation says. She took LaSalle as her stage name after she moved to Chicago in her teens and started singing R&B.

LaSalle later sang blues as a recording artist for Mississippi-based Malaco records.