Sass Jordan

Birmingham to Westmount Park

She was born Sarah Jordan in Birmingham on 23 December 1960 and moved to Montreal at the age of three, when her father took a post at Concordia University. She sang in Westmount Park as a child and was working downtown Montreal clubs by 16, around the time she joined The Pinups as vocalist and bass player — the bass stayed in her hands long enough that obituaries still identified her as a player as well as a singer.

Her first appearance on record came in 1986, as co-lead vocalist on the Bündock album Mauve, alongside session work for The Box. Atlantic signed her and released Tell Somebody in 1988, which produced the singles "Tell Somebody", "Double Trouble", "Stranger Than Paradise" and "So Hard". The Junos named her Most Promising Female Vocalist of the Year in 1989, and she was nominated for Best Female Vocalist in 1990, 1993 and 1995.

Racine, and one very large year

Racine, released on MCA in 1992, remained the commercial high-water mark. It shifted roughly 450,000 copies worldwide, about 100,000 of them in Canada, and reached 174 on the US albums chart, which undersells what it did on rock radio: "Make You a Believer" climbed to 11 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock chart, and the magazine named her its top female rock artist of 1992. "I Want to Believe", "You Don't Have to Remind Me" and "Goin' Back Again" came off the same record.

The same year brought the duet that put her voice in front of the largest audience she would ever reach. She sang "Trust in Me" with Joe Cocker for The Bodyguard soundtrack, an album that went on to sell more than 45 million copies; the account that followed the record was that Kevin Costner picked her after hearing her on his car radio. The touring that followed was support work at scale — Aerosmith, the Rolling Stones, AC/DC and Van Halen.

Rats, and the drummer she hired

Rats followed on Impact in 1994, peaking at 158 in the US and delivering "Sun's Gonna Rise", her first entry on the Billboard Hot 100. She later named it her favourite of her own records, which is not the usual verdict on a follow-up that sold less than its predecessor.

The drummer on it was Taylor Hawkins, who had joined her touring band at 22, before Alanis Morissette and before the Foo Fighters. His summary of the apprenticeship was blunt: "Sass taught me how to be in a rock and roll band and gave me my first rock and roll check." On 9 July 2015 she joined the Foo Fighters on stage in Toronto for "Stay with Me". That 1994 band was eventually released on its own terms as Live in New York Ninety-Four, which came out in April 2023 and has Hawkins on drums throughout.

Idol, theatre and the long middle

Present arrived in 1997 and Hot Gossip in 2000, both on Aquarius. Get What You Give followed in 2006, cut in Nashville with Colin Linden producing, then From Dusk 'Til Dawn in 2009 and a re-recorded Racine Revisited on Linus in 2017.

Away from her own catalogue she took the lead as Janis Joplin in the off-Broadway production Love, Janis in 2001 and appeared in Toronto and Winnipeg stagings of The Vagina Monologues. From 2003 she sat on the judging panel of Canadian Idol for all six seasons, through 2008, which is how a large part of the Canadian audience knew her at all. In the early 2010s she formed S.U.N. with drummer Brian Tichy, Whitesnake bassist Michael Devin and Tommy Stewart, whose debut album came out on 12 February 2013; "Mobile Again" from that project stayed in her solo sets afterwards. She served as honorary colonel of 417 Combat Support Squadron from 2012 until August 2016, and in 2019 both joined Mike Garson's A Bowie Celebration: The David Bowie Alumni Tour and launched Rebel Moon Whiskey and a Niagara wine label.

The blues records that closed the catalogue

The last phase was the most settled. Rebel Moon Blues, her first outright blues album, came out on Stony Plain in 2020 and reached 5 on the Billboard Blues Albums chart dated 28 March that year. Bitches Blues followed on the same label in 2022, peaking at 15 on the same chart, and turned out to be the tenth and final studio album. "Still Alive and Well" from it held a place in the live set for the rest of her career.

Taken together with the 2023 live release, it meant that the records she was promoting at the end were a long way from the arena rock of 1992 — smaller, rougher, built for the festival and theatre circuit she was actually playing.

The last summer, and what ended it

She worked steadily through 2025 and 2026 on the Canadian festival run: Music In the Fields at Lucknow, Ontario on 22 August 2025 and the KV Music Festival at Rothesay, New Brunswick a week later, then Hard Rock Live in Ottawa on 30 June 2026, Peterborough Musicfest on 8 July, the Pigeon Lake Music Festival at Mulhurst, Alberta on 31 July and the TD Kitchener Blues Festival in early August, on a bill that also carried the Fabulous Thunderbirds and Bill Durst.

On 1 September 2026 her team cancelled everything remaining in the calendar. The statement read: "Unfortunately, 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." The casualties included a 16 September date opening the Tour de Fort season in the Rainy River District, plus bookings at the Thunder Bay Community Auditorium and the Dryden Entertainment Series. The nature of the illness was never made public.

She died on 2 October 2026 in Montreal, aged 65, with her family present; the news was announced the following day through her publicist Eric Alper. Her family called her "an inimitable force of nature". She is survived by her husband, the musician Derek Sharp, her daughter Stella Jordan-Sharp, her stepdaughter Brianne Sharp and her brother Daniel Jordan. There are no dates on sale, and there will not be.