She Gave Taylor Hawkins His First Big Break, and Most of America Never Knew Her Name

Rock music keeps a strange kind of scoreboard. The loudest names are not always the ones who did the most. Sass Jordan died on Friday, Oct. 2, surrounded by her family, at 63, and the announcement carried the kind of line that makes you sit up a little straighter: “She remains in our hearts, an inimitable force of nature. An irreplaceable being of light and joy.”

She was a Canadian rock icon with a Juno Award, a voice that filled arenas, and six seasons as a judge on Canadian Idol. She toured with Aerosmith and the Rolling Stones and AC/DC. And yet the fact that will follow her into every obituary is the one she probably talked about least: when Taylor Hawkins was just a 22-year-old kid with sticks and ambition, it was Sass Jordan who handed him his first real job in a touring rock band. Dave Grohl himself said it on stage in Toronto years later, in front of a roaring crowd: without Sass Jordan, there would be no Taylor Hawkins in the Foo Fighters.

This is the story of a woman who shaped rock music in a way most Americans never noticed, right up until the moment she was gone.

The Announcement

Jordan’s family posted the news to her Instagram on Saturday, Oct. 3, beside a photo of the singer cuddling a cat. The message was spare and graceful: “On Oct. 2, 2026, surrounded by her loving family, Sass Jordan peacefully crossed over to the other side.”

Her publicist, Eric Alper, followed with a tribute that captured why she mattered. Over four decades, he wrote, she gave Canadian rock one of its most recognizable voices, carved out space for women in a genre long dominated by men, and opened doors for the young musicians who came through her band. He called her a woman whose generosity and fire touched everyone who shared a stage, a studio or a kitchen table with her.

No official cause of death has been released. (A few outlets have listed her age as 65; her publicist and most reports, including her family’s statement, say 63.) What is known is that she had been fighting something serious. Last month she canceled all of her remaining 2026 tour dates, citing an undisclosed serious medical condition. Her last performance was at Peterborough Musicfest in July.

The Voice That Cut Through the Noise

Sass Jordan was born Sarah Jordan in Birmingham, England, and moved to Montreal at three years old, the daughter of a French literature professor and a ballerina. She picked up a guitar as a young teen in Westmount Park, and by 16 she was fronting bands in downtown Montreal clubs. Seeing David Bowie on his Diamond Dogs tour, she later said, is what made her decide to become a singer.

Her recording career began in 1986 as co-lead vocalist on “Come On (Baby Tonight),” and she quickly built a reputation as one of Montreal’s toughest session singers. Then came the solo debut. Tell Somebody arrived in 1988, the title track climbed to number 11 in Canada, and in 1989 Jordan won the Juno Award for Most Promising Female Vocalist. She would be nominated for Female Vocalist of the Year three more times, in 1990, 1993 and 1995.

There is a reason musicians from that era talk about her voice the way they do. It had grit and soul in equal measure, the kind of raw power that could cut through the loudest rock band on earth without losing a note of melody. She sang like someone who had nothing to prove and everything to give.

Racine and the Nineties

If Jordan has a signature record, it is Racine, her 1992 album and still her best seller, moving around 450,000 copies around the world. It produced the hits “Make You a Believer,” “I Want to Believe” and “You Don’t Have to Remind Me.” Two years later, Rats gave her “High Road Easy,” a top 10 hit in Canada and her first appearance on the Billboard Hot 100.

In 1992, Billboard named her its Top Female Rock Artist of the Year. Her voice also landed in one of the most famous movies of the decade: she recorded “Trust in Me” with Joe Cocker for The Bodyguard soundtrack, an album that spent 20 weeks at number one on the Billboard 200.

And then there were the tours. Aerosmith. The Rolling Stones. AC/DC. Van Halen. Jordan was the kind of singer other singers’ bands wanted next to them, because she made everybody on the bill sound better just by showing up.

The Drummer Nobody Knew She Gave the World

Here is the part of the story that keeps stopping people cold. In 1994, Jordan needed a drummer for her touring band. She hired a 22-year-old named Taylor Hawkins.

Hawkins never forgot it. “Sass taught me how to be in a rock and roll band and gave me my first rock and roll check,” he said. A few years later he joined the Foo Fighters and became one of the most beloved drummers in the world, right up until his death in 2022.

On July 9, 2015, the Foo Fighters brought Jordan on stage with them in Toronto for the Faces’ “Stay With Me.” Dave Grohl told the crowd, plainly: “If it weren’t for Sass Jordan, Taylor Hawkins wouldn’t be in Foo Fighters.” You can watch the footage and see Hawkins grinning beside the woman who gave him his shot. It is one of the sweetest moments in rock history, and it is worth remembering now that both of them are gone.

Canadian Idol and the Second Act

In 2003, Jordan joined Canadian Idol as a judge. She stayed for all six seasons, the only woman on the panel the entire run, and became a fixture of Canadian television. Contestants like Carly Rae Jepsen and Melissa O’Neil count among her favorites from those years.

Her career kept stretching in directions nobody predicted. She played Janis Joplin in the off-Broadway production Love, Janis. She appeared in productions of The Vagina Monologues. She served as honorary colonel of the 417 Combat Support Squadron from 2012 to 2016. She revisited her breakthrough with Racine Revisited in 2017, toured with the David Bowie alumni band in 2019, and dove deep into her blues roots with Rebel Moon Blues in 2020, which reached number 5 on Billboard’s Blues Albums chart. Across nearly four decades she released 10 albums, the last in 2022.

Five Songs to Remember Her By

If you never heard Sass Jordan sing, start here. These are the tracks that made her:

• “Make You a Believer” (1992): the anthem, the song every obituary is naming first, and the one that best shows what that voice could do at full throttle.
• “Tell Somebody” (1988): the debut single that introduced her to Canadian radio and won her the Juno.
• “High Road Easy” (1994): her biggest crossover moment, a top 10 hit in Canada and her first Billboard Hot 100 entry.
• “You Don’t Have to Remind Me” (1992): pure nineties rock radio, from the Racine sessions.
• “Trust in Me” (1992): her duet with Joe Cocker on The Bodyguard soundtrack, heard by millions who never knew her name.

The Goodbye Nobody Wanted to Rush

Jordan is survived by her husband, musician Derek Sharp of The Guess Who, her daughter Stella Jordan-Sharp, her stepdaughter Brianne Sharp, and her brother Daniel Jordan.

Tributes are still rolling in from the musicians she played with, the Idol contestants she judged, and the fans who packed her clubs and arenas. The family asked for privacy, which is their right. But the music does not belong to grief alone. It belongs to anybody who wants to turn it up.

Sass Jordan spent forty years proving that a woman with a guitar and a voice like a force of nature could hold her own in the loudest rooms in rock. She gave a kid drummer his first break, and that kid drummer went on to conquer the world. Most of America never learned her name. Today feels like the right time to fix that.

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