Sass Jordan - WikiHQ

Sarah "Sass" Jordan (born 23 December 1962) is an English-born Canadian rock singer from Montreal, Quebec. Her first single, "Tell Somebody," from her debut album of the same title won the Juno Award for Most Promising Female Vocalist in 1989. Since then, she has been nominated three more times for Juno Awards. Her album Rebel Moon Blues hit #5 on the Billboard Blues chart. Released 28 April 2023, her latest is a live album from 1994 when she toured with Taylor Hawkins on drums called Live in New York Ninety-Four.

Early life

Jordan was born in 1962, in Birmingham, England, to French literary professor Albert Jordan and former English ballerina Jean Lanceman. When Jordan was three years old, her dad moved them from France to Montreal for a position as a professor at Concordia University. In 1986, Jordan made her recording debut on the Bündock album Mauve as co-lead vocalist on the song "Come On (Baby Tonight)". She soon began working as a session vocalist for other Montreal-based acts, notably for The Box. In her early teens, Jordan regularly sang and played guitar with a group of friends in Westmount Park. By the age of 16, Sass Jordan began performing with bands at clubs in downtown Montreal, eventually becoming a vocalist/bassist for high-profile local band The Pinups.

Musical influences

Jordan was first inspired to pursue music after hearing The Band's 1969 track "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" on the radio. Jordan's parents only had classical music in the house, and she has described hearing The Band on the radio as a "revelation." She has cited Rod Stewart, Judas Priest, Ozzy Osbourne, David Bowie, Tears For Fears, Anthrax, and American soul singer Al Green, as among her musical influences.

Recording career

Jordan's debut album, Tell Somebody, was released in 1988 on Atlantic Records, featuring the Canadian chart hit singles "Tell Somebody", "Double Trouble", "Stranger Than Paradise", and "So Hard". "They played the "Tell Somebody" video on Much Music a lot," said Jordan. "I remember going in two weeks from relative obscurity to being recognized as the girl in the video." During the 1988–89 chart run of "So Hard", Jordan was also represented on the Canadian charts with her remake of the 1965 R&B classic "Rescue Me", which had been recorded for the soundtrack of the film American Boyfriends. and yielded the Canadian hit singles "Make You a Believer", "I Want to Believe", "You Don't Have to Remind Me" and "Goin’ Back Again". "Make You a Believer" and "I Want to Believe" were ranked on Billboard magazine's Mainstream Rock chart.

Sass Jordan's success as a judge on Canadian Idol encouraged her to return to recording in 2006, with the release of her album Get What You Give, recorded at the Nashville studio of Colin Linden, who served as producer. Guest artists on the album included bassist Garry Tallent (of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band), drummers Ken Coomer (Uncle Tupelo, Wilco) and Bryan Owings (Shelby Lynne), guitarist Audley Freed (The Black Crowes) and keyboardist Richard Bell (The Band, Janis Joplin).

In 2009, Jordan entrusted her husband Derek Sharp with producing her album From Dusk 'til Dawn. The album was recorded in only three weeks and was mixed in Los Angeles. In discussing the songwriting for From Dusk ‘til Dawn, Jordan explained:

<blockquote>I was thinking about how human beings seem to be more sensitive and worried about things from sunset to sunrise. When you're alone is when the fear of death really hits you, and I was trying to write songs that were related to the fears of the middle of the night.</blockquote>

In 2011, Jordan recorded the studio project album S.U.N.: Something Unto Nothing featuring Brian Tichy and Michael Devin of Whitesnake, and Tommy Stewart. The album began when Jordan reunited with Tichy at his Santa Clarita home studio to write songs. Something Unto Nothing marked the first collaboration between Jordan and Tichy since Rats. "Burned" was the first song that Jordan and Tichy wrote together for the project, which soon evolved into a full album.

In 2017, 25 years after the release of Racine, Jordan recorded Racine Revisited featuring reimagined versions of the songs from the original 1992 album. "We pushed the sound back to the Misty Mountain Hop days of the 1970s and made it as if we were actually recording back then," said Jordan. "We would all live together in the studio and record live off the floor [without] Auto-Tune or click track or anything like that". Of the recording process, Sass Jordan said that Racine Revisited was "the most fun I’ve had in a while making a record." "Instead of taking Racine from 1992 to 2017, we went from 1992 to 1976".

In 2020, Sass Jordan released Rebel Moon Blues, her first blues album. Rebel Moon Blues features covers of blues classics, as well as the original "The Key". In discussing "The Key" on SXMCanadaNow, Jordan said:

<blockquote>That song was written about three weeks before we went into recording. Derek and I realized we should have at least one song that we wrote together on here, and so we came up with "The Key". The whole song came together in an hour. When it's meant to happen it really just flows out.</blockquote>

Rebel Moon Blues was critically acclaimed upon release, with American Blues Scene writing:

<blockquote>After three decades in the business, many singers lose that certain something that may have launched their career. Not so with Sass Jordan. Not only is her voice as muscular as ever, I think, like fine wine, it's improved over the years.</blockquote>

The album debuted at #5 on the Billboard Blues Album Chart.

Her second blues album called Bitches Blues, featuring the song "Still Alive and Well", was released on 3 June 2022.

In April 2023, Sass Jordan's much anticipated live album, featuring Taylor Hawkins on drums in 1994, became available on streaming and vinyl pre-orders. The album was called Live in New York Ninety-Four. The first single was “High Road Easy” (Live).

Other projects

As Jordan quoted in the Hamilton Spectator:

<blockquote>If you love music and you've been around as long as I have, you pretty much do what you got to do. [I don't] make records to sell anymore. Nobody bloody buys them. I am in the indescribably enviable position of being able to make records here and there if I feel like it. It certainly isn't going to be a living. But I love music. I am a huge, gigantic fan.</blockquote>

Sass Jordan has enjoyed a successful acting career in theatre and television. Jordan played the lead role of Janis Joplin in the off-Broadway hit Love, Janis in 2001, Jordan is married to musician Derek Sharp, and they have one daughter.

Billboard magazine listed Sass Jordan as the Top Female Rock Artist of the Year in 1992.

In 2012, Jordan was appointed honorary colonel of 417 Combat Support Squadron, an appointment she held until Glen Suitor's appointment in August 2016.

Discography

Studio albums

{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center;"

! rowspan="2" style="width:14em;"| Title

! rowspan="2" style="width:18em;"| Details

! colspan="3"| Peak chart positions

|- style="font-size:smaller;"

! style="width:45px;"| US

! style="width:45px;"| US Heat

! style="width:45px;"| Billboard Blues Albums

! scope="row"| Tell Somebody

Release date: 1988
Label: Atlantic Records
Formats: CD

| —

! scope="row"| Racine

Release date: 31 March 1992
Label: MCA Records
Formats: CD

| 174

| 2

! scope="row"| Rats

Release date: 1 March 1994
Label: Impact Records
Formats: CD

| 158

| 5

! scope="row"| Present

Release date: 1 November 1997
Label: Aquarius Records
Formats: CD

| —

! scope="row"| Hot Gossip

Release date: 12 December 2000
Label: Aquarius Records
Formats: CD

| —

! scope="row"| Get What You Give

Release date: 19 September 2006
Label: Universal Music Group
Formats: CD

| —

! scope="row"| From Dusk 'Til Dawn

Release date: 15 September 2009
Label: Kindling Music
Formats: CD

| —

! scope="row"| Racine Revisited

Release date: 15 September 2017
Label: Linus Entertainment
Formats: CD

| —

! scope="row"| Rebel Moon Blues

Release date: 13 March 2020
Label: Stony Plain Records
Formats: CD

| —

| 5

! scope="row"| Bitches Blues

Release date: 3 June 2022
Label: Stony Plain Records
Formats: CD

| —

| 15

| colspan="15" style="font-size:8pt"| "—" denotes releases that did not chart

Singles

{| class="wikitable"

!rowspan=2|Year

!rowspan=2|Title

!colspan=5|Chart Positions

!rowspan=2|Album

!width=45|CAN

!width=45|CAN AC

!width=45|US

!width=45|US AC

!width=45|US Main

|1988

|"Tell Somebody"

|align="center"|11

|align="center"|—

|rowspan=4|Tell Somebody

|rowspan=4|1989

|"Double Trouble"

|align="center"|12

|align="center"|—

|"Stranger Than Paradise"

|align="center"|37

|align="center"|—

|"So Hard"

|align="center"|41

|align="center"|—

|"Rescue Me"

|align="center"|44

|align="center"|—

|American Boyfriends (soundtrack)

|rowspan=4|1992

|"Make You a Believer"

|align="center"|12

|align="center"|—

|align="center"|11

|rowspan=5|Racine

|"I Want to Believe"

|align="center"|16

|align="center"|20

|align="center"|—

|"You Don't Have to Remind Me"

|align="center"|15

|align="center"|—

|align="center"|12

|"Goin' Back Again"

|align="center"|14

|align="center"|—

|1993

|"Who Do You Think You Are"

|align="center"|37

|align="center"|—

|rowspan=3|1994

|"High Road Easy"

|align="center"|9

|align="center"|—

|align="center"|6

|rowspan=3|Rats

|"Sun's Gonna Rise"

|align="center"|7

|align="center"|—

|align="center"|86

|align="center"|36

|align="center"|—

|"I'm Not"

|align="center"|47

|align="center"|—

|1997

|"Do What I Can"

|align="center"|20

|align="center"|6

|align="center"|—

|rowspan=2|Present

|1998

|"Desire"

|align="center"|12

|align="center"|—

|align="center" colspan="14" style="font-size:9pt"|"—" denotes releases that did not chart or were not released in that country.

References

External links

SassJordan.com
SomethingUntoNothing.com