That Eric Alper

There is a man whose songs have soundtracked some of the most iconic moments in modern music history- a global number one for Rod Stewart, an album-track gem on Cher’s ten-million-selling Believe, songs recorded by Diana Ross, Bette Midler, Bonnie Raitt, Chicago, Joe Cocker, and The Manhattan Transfer- and until now, most people didn’t know his name. That changes today. Rhythm of My Heart: The Authorized Biography of Marc Jordan, written by Emmy-winning composer Don Breithaupt and available now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Indigo, is the full, wild, heartfelt, and frequently jaw-dropping account of one of the most extraordinary careers in the history of Canadian music. It is already a #1 bestseller on Amazon’s Pop Musician Biographies list, and once you read even a page of it, you will understand why.

Jordan is Brooklyn-born, Toronto-raised, and spent his peak years in the thick of Hollywood’s most extravagant music era- writing songs in rooms alongside Steely Dan, partying with The Band’s Richard Manuel, getting picked up for studio sessions by Roger Nichols in a street-illegal Pantera, and fielding a phone call from Rod Stewart himself who said, with unmistakable conviction: “I’m gonna sing the shit out of this song, man.” He did. It went to number one in a dozen countries.

Marc Jordan is 76 years old, still writing, still recording, still performing. His songs have sold over 35 million units worldwide. He has been inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame alongside his longtime writing partner John Capek. And his story- of dyslexia, addiction, redemption, and a love story for the ages- is unlike anything else you will read this year.

10 THINGS MARC JORDAN CAN TALK ABOUT THAT WILL MAKE YOUR AUDIENCE ABSOLUTELY LOSE IT

(All of these are in the book. All of them are true. Marc is available for interviews.)

1.  Rod Stewart Called Him the Night Before His Own Wedding to Say He’d Found His Next Hit

It was December 1990. Rod was getting married to Rachel Hunter in days. Marc and his wife Amy were having dinner. The phone rang. On the other end: Rod Stewart and Warner Music UK Chairman Rob Dickins. Rod’s exact words to Marc, once he confirmed he was serious: “I’m gonna sing the shit out of this song, man.” That song was “Rhythm of My Heart.” It went Top 5 in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, Ireland, Germany, and Austria- and was later performed by Rod for 60,000 people at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, with Queen Elizabeth in the crowd.

2.  He Wrote a Song for Cher’s Believe Without Ever Meeting the Producer- and the Album Sold 10 Million Copies

Warner Music UK’s Rob Dickins had been pitching Cher on making a dance record for nine months. She kept refusing. He finally got her a track from house music pioneer Todd Terry- just a beat, no melody- and sent it to Marc. Marc wrote “Taxi, Taxi” over it, alone, never meeting the New York producer. The album sold over ten million copies worldwide. Marc collected the mechanical royalties. “There was money in the machine then,” he says. “That’s what made it so tough.”

3.  He Lived Below The Band’s Richard Manuel in Malibu- and Watched Him Slowly Fall Apart

When Marc first arrived in L.A., Warner put him up in a Malibu duplex. Richard Manuel of The Band lived upstairs. Manuel kept no stand for his keyboard- he played it on the floor. He had Grand Marnier everywhere and a pellet gun he’d use to shoot passersby on the beach. He introduced himself to Marc every single day despite having hung out with him multiple times. Marc and his manager tried to get him help. Manuel committed suicide in 1986. “He sounded like a broken-hearted angel to me,” says Marc.

4.  He Once Drove a Drug Addict Around L.A. to His Dealers Just to Stay Afloat After Getting Dropped by Warner

After Warner declined to pick up his option in 1980, Marc was broke, living on a plastic chaise longue from someone’s garbage with a two-dollar black-and-white TV. A man he knew from the record business- recently stripped of his driver’s license due to cocaine- called and asked if Marc would drive him to his dealers. Marc did it for four or five months, all over L.A.- Tarzana, Santa Monica, Bel Air- just to stay in the city. “I knew something would happen eventually,” he says. Something did.

5.  His Grade 3 Teacher Divided the Class Into “Rockets, Spitfires, and Bombers”- Marc Was a Bomber

Undiagnosed dyslexia meant Marc was streamed into the group for “troubled kids” at age seven- sitting with the problem children, away from his friends. A guidance counsellor told him in Grade 12 he had “the intelligence of a spider monkey.” He faked his way through school. He wrote tests drunk at 9 AM. He flunked Grade 13. It wasn’t until his daughter Zoe was diagnosed with dyslexia decades later that Marc finally understood what had happened to him. His foreword in the book, written in his own voice, is one of the most moving things you will read about a childhood.

6.  He Was Supposed to Co-Write a Song With Burt Bacharach for Shania Twain’s Comeback- and Shania Pulled Out

In 2014, Marc pitched the idea of a sophisticated Bacharach-style comeback record for Shania Twain. He got Burt on the phone. (Burt’s first question: “Does she sell records?”) He got the label interested. He got everyone aligned. Then Shania suddenly wasn’t interested. Marc had to call Burt back and break the news. “Broke my heart,” he says. Twain later self-penned all twelve songs on her 2017 album Now.

7.  Alanis Morissette Stayed at His Beachwood Canyon House While Writing Jagged Little Pill- and Got Held Up at Gunpoint in His Driveway

When Marc and Amy moved back to Toronto in 1993, they held onto their Beachwood Canyon home for a few years. Alanis Morissette stayed there in 1994 while writing the album that would become one of the bestselling records of all time. She was held up at gunpoint in Marc’s driveway. “It was a good neighbourhood,” he says, “but occasionally people would drift up from Hollywood Boulevard and get weird.”

8.  He Was in a Recording Session That Was So Stuffy and Chaotic, the Engineer Stood Up Mid-Take and Ran Out Into the Night- and Was Never Seen Again

While recording the demo for “Rhythm of My Heart” in a sealed, airless studio in Hollywood, Marc and co-writer John Capek were trying to get a bagpipe player to lay down his part. (They’d found him through a connection to Paul McCartney, who’d used bagpipes on “Mull of Kintyre.” The piper arrived and confessed he only knew a few notes.) By midnight, the studio was “like a sauna,” Marc says, with no oxygen. The engineer suddenly stood up “straight as an arrow” and bolted. Didn’t say a word. Never came back. Marc and Capek finished the session themselves.

9.  He Proposed to Amy Sky at Midnight With One Condition: No Dancing at Their Wedding- Then Turned On the Home Shopping Network to Look for a Ring

Their first real date was in a hippie restaurant in Topanga Canyon. He picked her up in a ’68 Oldsmobile convertible. (He had doused the upholstery with patchouli oil to cover the smell left by a feral cat.) When the day came to decide whether to stay in L.A. for Amy or move to London for his planned “bachelor artist’s life,” he chose her- proposing at midnight with one caveat: no dancing at the wedding. Amy said yes. He turned on the Home Shopping Network to shop for a ring. They were married eight weeks later, on New Year’s Eve, at Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto.

10.  He Once Fell Off a Stage Onto a Table Full of People While Wearing Velvet Pants, a Pink Satin Shirt, and Platform Boots- and the Club Didn’t Even Fire Him

On a bar circuit gig in Charlottetown, PEI, after a 16-hour drive that involved speed, a broken-down Bell Telephone truck, a hitchhiker who gave him a Quaalude, and a slip in a field of horse manure, Marc hit the stage “a complete mess.” In his velvet pants, pink satin shirt, and platform boots, the only thing he remembers about the gig is his guitar spinning in the stage lights as he fell off the stage in slow motion onto a table of people. The club let them finish the set.

Rhythm of My Heart: The Authorized Biography of Marc Jordan goes far beyond the greatest hits and the celebrity encounters. At its heart, it is a love story between a man and his craft, and between a man and the woman who, in his own words, “gave him wings to fly.” Amy Sky- singer, songwriter, and Marc’s wife of nearly 40 years- is woven through every chapter. Their daughter Zoe (a Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter) and son Ezra (whose Spotify streams are well into the millions) contribute moving appendices. The book is at once a biography, a love letter, a survival story, and a guided tour of fifty years of popular music.

Written by Don Breithaupt- Emmy-winning composer, author of the definitive book on Steely Dan’s Aja, and a fellow Berklee alumnus who has known and collaborated with Marc for decades- the biography draws on primary interviews conducted over a week at the Jordan family cottage on Lake of Bays, as well as secondary interviews with David Foster, Rob Dickins, Bruce Hornsby, Rod Stewart collaborators, and a cast of legendary names from across the last half-century of pop music. Marc’s own foreword, in his voice, is a document of childhood that deserves to be read by every parent, every teacher, and every person who has ever been told they couldn’t.

Both Marc Jordan and Don Breithaupt are available for interviews. Physical review copies are available upon request. Whether you want the music story, the addiction and recovery story, the love story, the dyslexia and creativity story, or simply the most outrageous celebrity anecdotes in recent Canadian publishing- Rhythm of My Heart has it.

Rhythm of My Heart: The Authorized Biography of Marc Jordan is available now at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Indigo.