JORDAN REIMAGINES HER PAST IN ALBUM RACINE REVISITED
‘I got to pretend that I was a kid, recording a record the way I would have loved to’
In 1992, Sass Jordan released an album that was to mark a turning point in her career.
The disc, Racine, would go on to reach No. 2 on the Billboard U.S. hot album chart. It also landed on an array of Top 10 critics’ lists that year. And it went on to net her four Top 15 Canadian hits: I Want to Believe, Goin’ Back Again, Make You a Believer and You Don’t Have to Remind Me.
So to mark the 25th anniversary of the album, the Montreal raised belter decided a tribute was in order. But in lieu of simply re-releasing Racine, Jordan decided she would reimagine it by doing updated versions of each song with a new musical team, led by her husband, Guess Who staple Derek Sharp.
The result is Racine Revisited, and Jordan will be returning to her hometown to perform Friday at L’Astral.
But before getting down to details of the new disc, Jordan is reminded of her early days in Montreal, even before she became a backup singer for the iconic Québécois band The Box. To cover the rent, she once dispensed coffee beans at a java joint where we first met some three decades back. It was somewhat memorable. My toddler son playfully yanked a lever on a vat and suddenly a mountain of beans fell on the floor. He was left feeling a little traumatized.
Jordan was remarkably gracious while trying to collect the errant beans, but does allow that such mishaps might have hastened her decision to proceed faster in the music biz.
“Tell him he’s forgiven now,” a laughing Jordan says in a phone interview from her Toronto home. “It all worked out in the end.”
True. My son doesn’t dare fiddle with bean vats anymore, and Jordan hasn’t had need of a day job shilling beans since then.
So what possessed Jordan to reimagine Racine?
“I asked myself how I could do something slightly different from what people ordinarily do in those situations? There are a million 25-year anniversary records coming out, and usually what performers will do is to take the original and remix it or remaster it or add a couple of new songs.
“As an artist, it’s nice to revisit the past, but the past does get a little goddamn dull. It’s been done. So I thought I could do something that wouldn’t bore me, and this was the answer. I loved the idea of trying to remake it.”
Jordan’s point is well taken. It must bore some musicians to no end when they take to the stage and have to grind out tunes that accounted for their popularity 40 and 50 years ago.
“Sure, the people that loved you then will love you now, but the problem is that those people may not be interested in anything new you are trying to do,” reasons Jordan, who was born in Birmingham, England before moving to Montreal as a child. “I completely understand that. So I walk the line between making a living and making myself happy by enjoying what I’m doing.
“Therefore, this was the perfect outlet for me. It’s a different time. It’s a different band. It’s a different circumstance. And I got to pretend that I was a kid, recording a record the way I would have loved to have recorded a record back then in the style of my biggest heroes back then, the Allman Brothers, Bonnie Raitt and The Band — who all made records in communal settings.”
Jordan, Sharp and band members Rudy Sarzo on bass, Brent Fitz on drums and percussion and Chris Caddell on guitars did indeed live in a communal setting, just outside Calgary, while recording Racine Revisited over a nine-day span.
Jordan is also blessed in that she can still blast ’em like she did decades earlier in her career. She attributes that to a feeling of well-being outside her larynx.
“I have been singularly fortunate in that I have managed to navigate my life in a way that I find a lot of joy.
“I think that reflects in the physical and energetic qualities of my voice. I even think I sing better in a lot of ways now than I used to. That, of course, comes with experience and knowing how to work my way around. But the real key is just to not stop, because the voice will get rusty.”
Rust is not an issue now, and it wan’t an issue when Jordan was doing backup with The Box or solo on her own albums — in both English and French — in her early
years. And it certainly wasn’t an issue when she morphed into one of the greatest belters of them all, Janis Joplin, in the acclaimed 2001 off-Broadway hit Love, Janis.
“I have to confess I’m not the world’s hugest fan of Janis, but doing that show did make me respect her,” Jordan reflects.
“It was really by accident I got that part — not because I wanted to do it. They said they would fly me to New York City to do the audition, and I said: ‘Yay … a free trip to New York and I could visit my friend Loretta.’
“I never thought I’d actually get the part. I had no idea how I did. Then I had to bloody do it for five long months. It was the hardest work I’ve ever done in my life. People said I sounded like her because of our raspy voices, but everybody thinks all women with raspy voices sound the same, be it Janis or Stevie Nicks or Bonnie Tyler. Especially raspy women with blond hair.”
Jordan pays no heed to such stereotypes. She has always marched to her own beat and will continue to do so. On the heels of Racine Revisited, she has two music projects in the works — one original material and the other covers.
“What keeps me going, what matters the most, are curiosity and fun.”
There has been some buzz about Jordan possibly returning to live in Montreal.
“I did say that I would like to live on an island again one day — but I’m talking an island with palm trees, baby,” Jordan jests.
“I will always love Montreal, but tropical it ain’t.”