BluesClassic Rock
Sass Jordan died on Friday 2 October at the age of 63, surrounded by her family. No cause has been given.
Two weeks earlier she had vanished from the calendar. Her 16 September show in Fort Frances was cancelled, and with it the Thunder Bay and Dryden dates in north-western Ontario. The statement at the time said that “due to a serious medical condition, Sass is currently unable to perform and has been advised to step away from all professional commitments for the remainder of 2026 to focus on her health and recovery.” Its nature wasn’t disclosed then, and hasn’t been since.
Born Sarah Jordan on 23 December 1962 in Birmingham and raised in Montreal from the age of three, she debuted with “Tell Somebody” (Atlantic, 1988) and won the 1989 Juno for most promising female vocalist. The record that defined her is “Racine” (MCA, 31 March 1992), which sold around 450,000 copies worldwide and 100,000 in Canada; its single “Make You A Believer” reached number 11 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock chart. Billboard named her the top female rock artist of that year.
She sang “Trust In Me” with Joe Cocker for The Bodyguard soundtrack and toured with Aerosmith, the Rolling Stones, AC/DC and Van Halen. Taylor Hawkins played in her live band before joining Foo Fighters; in 2015 she sang “Stay With Me” with them. In Canada far more people knew her from the Canadian Idol judging panel, where she sat for all six seasons from 2003.
Of ten studio albums, the last is “Bitches Blues” (Stony Plain, 3 June 2022). In 2023 she still put out an archival live record, “Live In New York Ninety-Four”. Her family remember her as “an inimitable force of nature” and “an irreplaceable being of light and joy”. She leaves her husband, Derek Sharp, her daughter Stella, her stepdaughter Brianne and her brother Daniel.
Text by Enric Vilaplana