The family of Sass Jordan has announced that the singer-songwriter, Juno Award winner, and longtime Canadian Idol judge, died peacefully on October 2, 2026, surrounded by loved ones. She was 65.
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. Over four decades, she gave Canadian rock one of its most recognizable voices, carved out space for women in a genre long dominated by men, and opened doors for the young musicians who came through her band.
Born Sarah Jordan on December 23, 1960, in Birmingham, England, she was the daughter of French literature professor Albert Jordan and former English ballerina Jean Lanceman. At three, she moved with her family from France to Montreal, where her father had taken a professorship at Concordia University. Classical music filled the household, which made hearing The Band’s “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” on the radio feel like a revelation. Seeing David Bowie on his Diamond Dogs Tour, her very first concert, settled the question of what she would do with her life.
As a young teen she sang and played guitar with friends in Westmount Park, and by 16 she was fronting bands in downtown Montreal clubs, later becoming singer and bassist for local favourites The Pinups. Around 1981, a young manager named Simon Fuller, stranded in Montreal after one of his touring acts ran out of money, spent two weeks living in her basement. Their paths would cross again two decades later.
She drew inspiration from a remarkably wide circle, from Rod Stewart, Judas Priest, Ozzy Osbourne, Tears for Fears and Anthrax to Al Green, Bonnie Raitt, Chaka Khan, Gladys Knight and Aretha Franklin. She especially studied the great male rock vocalists, among them Steven Tyler, Robert Palmer, Paul Rodgers, Lou Gramm, Robin Zander and Lowell George of Little Feat, and believed that “it is rhythm that makes a great singer.”
Her recording career began in 1986 as co-lead vocalist on “Come On (Baby Tonight)” from Bündock’s album ‘Mauve’. She quickly became a sought-after session singer in Montreal, most notably on The Box’s breakthrough “L’Affaire Dumoutier (Say To Me…)”, and appeared in the band’s video for “Closer Together”. Her songwriting found an audience too, as Michael Breen took her composition “Rain” onto the Canadian charts in 1987.
Atlantic Records released her solo debut, ‘Tell Somebody’, in 1988, and the title track rose to #11 in Canada. “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.” The album also yielded “Double Trouble”, “Stranger Than Paradise” and “So Hard”, while her version of the 1965 R&B classic “Rescue Me”, recorded for the ‘American Boyfriends’ soundtrack, charted alongside them. She won the 1989 Juno Award for Most Promising Female Vocalist and went on to Best Female Vocalist nominations in 1990, 1993 and 1995.
After moving to Los Angeles in January 1990, she recorded “Racine,” released by MCA Records on March 31, 1992. It became the defining album of her career, selling an estimated 450,000 copies worldwide and 100,000 in Canada on the strength of “Make You a Believer,” “I Want to Believe,” “You Don’t Have to Remind Me” and “Goin’ Back Again,” with “Who Do You Think You Are” following in 1993.
“Make You a Believer” climbed to #11 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock chart, and Billboard named her its top female rock artist of 1992. 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. She toured alongside Aerosmith, The Rolling Stones, AC/DC and Van Halen.
Sass Jordan was a featured performer in “A Bowie Celebration: The David Bowie Alumni Tour,” alongside Kevin Armstrong, Carmine Rojas and Gerry Leonard. The tour is produced by Mike Garson.
Listen to ‘Racine’ here:
