Canadian rock singer Sass Jordan, whose gritty vocals and unapologetic attitude made her one of the country’s most recognizable rock performers, has died at the age of 63 — less than three months after making her third appearance at Peterborough Musicfest.
Jordan died on Friday (October 2), surrounded by her family, according to a statement posted to her social media accounts on Saturday, which described her as an “inimitable force of nature” and an “irreplaceable being of light and joy.” She would have turned 64 on December 23.
While a cause of death has not been announced, in September Jordan cancelled her remaining performances for 2026 because of what her team described as a “serious medical condition.” She had been scheduled to perform in Fort Frances, Dryden, and Thunder Bay but was advised to step away from all professional commitments to focus on her health and recovery.
Jordan had performed in Peterborough several times, including making her third appearance at Peterborough Musicfest on July 8.
In 2017, she made a stop at Peterborough’s Market Hall Performing Arts Centre as part of her Racine Revisited 25th anniversary tour.
In an interview with kawarthaNOW’s Paul Rellinger ahead of that concert, Jordan reflected on what had kept her working and performing through decades in the music industry.
“My whole reason for being is to uplift and inspire people,” she said. “The most important ingredient is the people that are in attendance at a particular performance. It’s the collective that makes the thing what it is.”
Born Sarah Jordan in Birmingham, England in 1962, Jordan moved with her family to Montreal as a child and grew up listening primarily to classical music before discovering rock and popular music.
She later began performing in Montreal clubs and worked as a session vocalist, including with Montreal new wave band The Box, before establishing herself as a solo artist.
Jordan broke through nationally with her 1988 debut album Tell Somebody, which spawned the title-track hit along with “Double Trouble,” “Stranger Than Paradise,” and “So Hard.”
The album earned her the 1989 Juno Award for most promising female vocalist, followed by several nominations for best female vocalist.
Her career reached another level with the release of Racine in 1992. The album included some of her best-known songs, among them “Make You a Believer,” “You Don’t Have to Remind Me,” and “Goin’ Back Again.”
That same period also saw Jordan record “Trust in Me,” a duet with Joe Cocker included on the soundtrack for the blockbuster film The Bodyguard.
Her 1994 album Rats produced another signature song, “High Road Easy,” and Jordan went on to release a string of albums while performing and working with artists including Aerosmith, The Rolling Stones, and Cocker.
A new generation of Canadians came to know Jordan through television when she served as a judge on all six seasons of CTV’s Canadian Idol from 2003 to 2008.
In more recent years, Jordan increasingly explored the blues. Her 2020 album Rebel Moon Blues debuted at number five on the Billboard Blues Albums chart, followed by Bitches Blues in 2022.
