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Sass Jordan, the Montreal-raised rock singer who was best known for her 1992 hit Make You a Believer , has died at the age of 65.
The news was shared on Jordan’s Facebook page , which said she “peacefully crossed over to the other side … surrounded by her loving family.”
In a statement shared by her publicist, her family remembers her as “an inimitable force of nature” and “an irreplaceable being of light and joy,” a woman whose generosity and fire touched everyone who shared a stage, a studio or a kitchen table with her.
The social media post also included a poem that contained the lines, “ I’d rather quit this life/ Jumping with both feet/ Into the-you know what/ Without a backward look/ I’d rather go running there/ Arms wide open.”
A cause of death hasn’t been released, but Jordan had announced in August she was set to join the Road Hammers and the Sadies’ Travis Good for a benefit concert in Calgary next month.
On Instagram, Jordan’s musical friends paid tribute, including Deep Purple’s Glenn Hughes, who called her a “true friend.”
“RIP my sweet, talented rock ‘n’ roll sister,” Whatcha Do to My Body singer Lee Aaron added. “Heaven’s choir just got a kick-ass new addition.”
Jordan’s 1988 solo debut rocketed to No. 11 on Canadian charts
Drawing inspiration from a diverse array of artists, from Rod Stewart, Judas Priest, Ozzy Osbourne, Tears for Fears and Anthrax to Al Green, Bonnie Raitt, Chaka Khan, Gladys Knight and Aretha Franklin, Jordan started fronting bands in downtown Montreal clubs when she was a teenager.
Her four-decade recording career began in 1986 as co-lead vocalist on Come On (Baby Tonight) from Bündock’s album Mauve. She also sang on The Box’s breakthrough L’Affaire Dumoutier (Say To Me…), and appeared in the band’s video for Closer Together.
Jordan’s solo debut, Tell Somebody, was released in 1988 with the title track hitting No. 11 on Canadian charts.
“ They played the Tell Somebody video on Much Music a lot,” she recalled. “I remember going in two weeks from relative obscurity to being recognized as the girl in the video.”
With other songs from that album, including Double Trouble, Stranger Than Paradise and So Hard, also making noise on the charts, Jordan won the 1989 Juno Award for Most Promising Female Vocalist.
She went on to receive Juno noms for Best Female Vocalist in 1990, 1993 and 1995.
After moving to Los Angeles in January 1990, she recorded 1992’s Racine. It became the biggest-selling album of her career, with more than 450,000 copies sold and Make You a Believer and You Don’t Have to Remind Me both charting in the Top 20 in the U.S.
That same year, after Kevin Costner heard her voice on his car radio, she recorded the duet Trust in Me with Joe Cocker for The Bodyguard, a soundtrack that sold more than 45 million copies worldwide.
Billboard named her its top female rock artist of 1992 .
Her meteoric rise led to tours alongside Aerosmith, The Rolling Stones, AC/DC and Van Halen.
In 2003, Jordan joined Canadian Idol as a judge and appeared on all six seasons of the reality spinoff of the American singing competition.
Carly Rae Jepsen and Melissa O’Neil were among her favourite contestants .
‘Sass taught me how to be in a rock and roll band’
In her early years, Jordan hired T aylor Hawkins, who would go on to join Foo Fighters, as her touring drummer.
Hawkins, who died in 2022, credited her with teaching him the ropes of musicianship.
“ Sass taught me how to be in a rock and roll band and gave me my first rock and roll cheque,” he said.
She later reunited with Hawkins in Toronto in 2015 when she joined the Foo Fighters onstage to sing a cover of the Faces’ Stay With Me.
Hawkins recounted meeting Jordan when he was working at a music store in the mid-’90s.
“This woman took some dips*** like me, 22-year-old who didn’t know s***, on the road,” he said.
“All roads lead to the Foo Fighters,” singer Dave Grohl told the crowd at the Molson Amphitheatre. “If it weren’t for SassJordan , Taylor Hawkins wouldn’t be in Foo Fighters.”
Jordan continued to record throughout the 2000s and worked with her husband, musician Derek Sharp, with whom she shared a daughter, on 2009’s From Dusk ’til Dawn.
“ I was thinking about how human beings seem to be more sensitive and worried about things from sunset to sunrise,” she said of the album. “When you’re alone is when the fear of death really hits you, and I was trying to write songs that were related to the fears of the middle of the night.”
In 2019, she toured with Mike Garson’s A Bowie Celebration: The David Bowie Alumni Tour.
Jordan also dipped into blues on 2020’s Rebel Moon Blues and 2022’s Bitches Blues , her 10th and final studio album.
“If you love music and you’ve been around as long as I have, you pretty much do what you got to do,” she once said. “But I love music. I am a huge, gigantic fan.”
mdaniell@postmedia.com
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