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Sass Jordan

A raspy, powerful singer rooted in rock with a bent for the blues, Sass Jordan emerged as a promising hard rock hopeful at the dawn of the 1990s. Racine, her 1992 sophomore set, placed her within the ballpark of the Black Crowes, a muscular, appealing sound that was just starting to date due to the rise of alternative rock. Jordan was on the fringes of that revolution -- she gave her 1994 album Rats a harder edge and enlisted Taylor Hawkins as her drummer, long before he played with either Alanis Morissette or Foo Fighters -- but soon chose to follow the path as a hard-working troubadour, buttressing her Canadian stardom through a six-season stint as a judge on Canadian Idol in the 2000s, then drifting further in the direction of the blues -- a journey culminating in 2020's Rebel Moon Blues and its 2022 follow-up Bitches Blues -- as she continued to tour and record with regularity. Born in Birmingham, England on January 8, 1962, Sass Jordan's family relocated to Montreal, Quebec when she was three years old, after her father received a professorship at Concordia University. Raised in a household that revered classical music, Jordan was drawn to rock and soul, with the Band in particular acting as a gateway to other American music. As a teenager, she learned the guitar and began playing in bands, eventually moving to bass by the time she joined the Pinups. In her early twenties, she began working as a session vocalist and as a professional songwriter, placing "Rain" on the eponymous 1987 album by Michael Breen. Atlantic signed Jordan not much later. Tell Somebody, Jordan's debut album, appeared in Canada in 1988, generating the hit singles "Tell Somebody" and "Double Trouble." Helping her win the Juno for Most Promising Female Vocalist of the Year, Tell Somebody was successful enough to encourage Jordan to pursue an American audience with her next album, Racine. Recorded in Los Angeles and released in 1992 on MCA, the album fit into the '70s throwback scene created by the Black Crowes, which was enough for Jordan to place "Make You a Believer" and "You Don't Have to Remind Me" on Billboard's Mainstream rock chart, success that led to Billboard naming her as the Top Female Rock Artist of 1992. That same year, Jordan appeared on the blockbuster soundtrack to The Bodyguard, duetting with Joe Cocker on "Trust in Me." Jordan attempted to move in a harder-edged direction with 1994's Rats, an album accented with alt-rock flair; she supported it with a tour that featured future Foo Fighter Taylor Hawkins on drums. "High Road Easy" made it into the Billboard Mainstream Top Ten but it wasn't enough; MCA soon dropped her. Jordan moved to Aquarius Records for 1997's Present, an album pitched toward modern rock audiences. Neither Present nor its successor Hot Gossip managed to push her into mainstream rock so she started to pursue other creative paths. In 2001, she played Janis Joplin in an off-Broadway staging of Love, Janis, which led to her appearing in productions of The Vagina Monologues in Winnipeg and Toronto. The stage propelled her onto television, first with a role on the soap Sisters and then as a judge on Canadian Idol, the televised singing competition that launched in 2003. Jordan stayed with Canadian Idol throughout its six-season run, which helped elevate her profile as a recording artist. She returned in 2006 with Get What You Give, an album that featured support from Garry Tallent of the E-Street Band and Black Crowes guitarist Audley Freed. The record was followed by From Dusk 'Til Dawn, an album produced by her husband Derek Sharp, in 2009. Two years later, she joined forces with Tommy Stewart, Brian Tichy, and Michael Devin for S.U.N.: Something Unto Nothing, a studio band that reconnected Jordan to the flinty sound of Rats. In 2017, Jordan marked the 25th anniversary of Racine with the release of Racine Revisited, a re-recording of her breakthrough 1992 sophomore album. After appearing on Mike Garson's A Bowie Celebration: The David Bowie Alumni Tour in 2019, Jordan embraced the blues with 2020's Rebel Moon Blues, her first record for Stony Plain Records; it debuted at five on the Billboard Blues Album Chart. She quickly followed the album with another blues set called Bitches Blues in 2022.
© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo
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Discography

21 album(s) • Sorted by Bestseller

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