Sass Jordan, Canadian rock and blues singer, dies at 65
Canadian rock and blues singer Sass Jordan, a Juno Award winner whose career spanned more than four decades, died peacefully on October 2, surrounded by family. She was 65.
Jordan’s family announced her death, remembering the singer as “an inimitable force of nature” and “an irreplaceable being of light and joy.”
Born Sarah Jordan on December 23, 1960, in Birmingham, England, Jordan moved with her family to Montreal when she was three years old. She grew up in a household filled with classical music, but hearing The Band’s “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” helped steer her toward rock music. Seeing David Bowie on his Diamond Dogs Tour at her first concert further cemented the direction she wanted to take.
By her teenage years, Jordan was already performing around Montreal. At 16, she began fronting bands in downtown clubs and later became the singer and bassist for The Pinups.
After establishing herself as a session singer and songwriter, Jordan released her debut solo album, Tell Somebody, through Atlantic Records in 1988. The title track reached No. 11 in Canada, while the album also produced “Double Trouble,” “Stranger Than Paradise” and “So Hard.”
The success earned Jordan the 1989 Juno Award for Most Promising Female Vocalist. She would later receive Best Female Vocalist nominations in 1990, 1993 and 1995.
Jordan moved to Los Angeles in 1990 and released Racine in 1992, the album that became the biggest commercial success of her career. The record sold an estimated 450,000 copies worldwide and featured “Make You a Believer,” “I Want to Believe,” “You Don’t Have to Remind Me” and “Goin’ Back Again.”
“Make You a Believer” reached No. 11 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock chart, and Billboard named Jordan its top female rock artist of 1992.
Her voice also caught the attention of actor Kevin Costner, leading Jordan to record “Trust in Me” with Joe Cocker for The Bodyguard soundtrack. Jordan went on to tour alongside major acts including Aerosmith, The Rolling Stones, AC/DC and Van Halen.
One of the musicians in Jordan’s touring band during the 1990s was a young Taylor Hawkins, years before he became the drummer for Foo Fighters.
“Sass taught me how to be in a rock and roll band and gave me my first rock and roll check,” Hawkins once said.
Jordan released Rats in 1994, an album she later described as her favorite. “High Road Easy” reached No. 9 in Canada, while “Sun’s Gonna Rise” climbed to No. 7 and gave Jordan her first appearance on the Billboard Hot 100.
She continued recording throughout the following decades, releasing Present in 1997, Hot Gossip in 2000, Get What You Give in 2006 and From Dusk ’til Dawn in 2009.
Jordan also became familiar to a wider Canadian television audience when she joined Canadian Idol as a judge in 2003. She remained the only woman on the judging panel throughout the show’s six-season run.
Her career extended well beyond recording and television. Jordan portrayed Janis Joplin in the off-Broadway production Love, Janis, appeared in productions of The Vagina Monologues and served as honorary colonel of 417 Combat Support Squadron from 2012 to 2016.
In 2015, Jordan reunited onstage with Hawkins when she joined Foo Fighters in Toronto for a performance of the Faces’ “Stay With Me.”
“If it weren’t for Sass Jordan, Taylor Hawkins wouldn’t be in Foo Fighters,” Dave Grohl told the audience that night.
Jordan revisited one of her defining albums with Racine Revisited in 2017. Two years later, she joined Mike Garson’s A Bowie Celebration: The David Bowie Alumni Tour, bringing her career full circle by performing alongside musicians associated with one of the artists who had inspired her as a teenager.
Later in her career, Jordan increasingly embraced the blues and roots influences that had long been present in her music.
She released Rebel Moon Blues through Stony Plain Records in 2020. The album debuted at No. 5 on Billboard’s Blues Albums chart and included “The Key,” an original written with her husband, Derek Sharp.
“There’s been an undercurrent of blues throughout my whole career, the music that I have mostly been drawn to has always had that gritty, rootsy vein running through it, and that’s why I’m enjoying making these records so much,” Jordan said.
Her 10th and final studio album, Bitches Blues, followed in 2022. Featuring originals including “Change Is Coming,” “Still the World Goes Round” and “Still Alive and Well,” the album reached No. 15 on Billboard’s Blues Albums chart.
Jordan’s Champagne Hookers band during that period included guitarists Chris Caddell and Jimmy Reid, drummer Cass Pereira, keyboardist Jesse O’Brien and bassist and harmonica player Steve Marriner.
In 2023, Jordan released Live in New York Ninety-Four, a recording that preserved a 1994 performance featuring Hawkins on drums.
Jordan’s musical influences stretched from Bonnie Raitt, Al Green, Aretha Franklin and Chaka Khan to Rod Stewart, Ozzy Osbourne and Judas Priest. She also closely studied singers including Steven Tyler, Paul Rodgers, Lou Gramm, Robin Zander, Robert Palmer and Lowell George.
“If you love music and you’ve been around as long as I have, you pretty much do what you got to do,” Jordan once said. “But I love music. I am a huge, gigantic fan.”
Jordan leaves behind a career that crossed rock, blues, television and theater while helping establish her as one of Canada’s most recognizable rock voices. Her influence also extended to the musicians she worked with and mentored, from aspiring singers on Canadian Idol to Hawkins during the formative years of his career.
Jordan is survived by her husband, Derek Sharp; daughter Stella Jordan-Sharp and her husband, Daniel Yepes; stepdaughter Brianne Sharp; and brother Daniel Jordan and his wife, Isabelle Courville.
Her family has asked for privacy while they grieve and thanked fans around the world for the love they shared with Jordan throughout her career.
