Sass Jordan, the Canadian rock singer known for “Make You a Believer” and six seasons judging “Canadian Idol,” has died at 63, her family saying she passed away peacefully.
Page Six reported that Jordan died on Friday while surrounded by family, with the news shared in an Instagram announcement the next day. A cause of death was not immediately revealed.
Her family said she left as she lived, with force and light still attached to her name.
"She remains in our hearts, an inimitable force of nature. An irreplaceable being of light and joy."
The tribute post also noted she died “peacefully” and featured a photo of Jordan holding a cat.
Jordan is survived by her husband, Derek Sharp; her daughter, Stella; and her stepdaughter, Brianne.
Born in Birmingham, England, Jordan later moved to Montreal and started performing in local clubs at 16. She joined The Pinups as a bassist and vocalist, learning the grind of live rock the hard way before any chart run.
Her debut album, “Tell Somebody,” arrived in 1988, when she was around 25. The next year she won a Juno Award for most promising female vocalist and drew several other nominations, a fast signal that the Canadian industry heard a real voice.
In 1992, after her second album “Racine,” Billboard named her Female Rock Artist of the Year. The 11-track record included “Make You a Believer,” the song that still tags her name in headlines. “Racine” sold about 450,000 copies worldwide, the Irish Sun has reported.
Jordan’s reach widened in 1993 when she recorded the duet “Trust in Me” with Joe Cocker for “The Bodyguard: The Original Soundtrack Album.” That placement put her beside one of the decade’s biggest film records and outside the smaller Canadian circuit.
Through the 1990s she toured alongside major acts including the Rolling Stones, AC/DC, Aerosmith, and Van Halen, the kind of bills that separate club talent from road-tested pros.
From 2003 to 2008 she spent six seasons as a judge on “Canadian Idol,” moving from stage grit to living-room fame and mentoring another generation of singers on national television.
She also cut later material that kept her catalog active, including songs such as “High Road Easy” and “Suns Gonna Rise,” long after the first Juno flash.
The family announcement left the medical details private and fixed the public record on a simpler fact: a working rock singer who earned her awards the old way is gone at 63.
Real talent still outlasts the noise around it, and Jordan’s records, tours, and TV years leave a clean trail of work that did not need a committee’s permission to matter.
