Jon Lord

All Music Guide:

Jon Lord was best known as the co-founder and keyboard player for Deep Purple, but he had a lengthy career with other bands (and as a session musician) long before that band first recorded in 1968, and had an extensive solo career as well, in addition to playing with such offshoot groups as Whitesnake and Paice, Ashton & Lord. He was born Jon Douglas Lord in Leicester, England, in 1941, and manifested an interest in music very early on, taking up classical piano at age five -- his boyhood influences ranged from pre-Baroque through Johann Sebastian Bach to Late Romantics such as Sir Edward Elgar. As the 1950s went on, he also absorbed the music of such jazz and blues figures as Jimmy Smith and Jimmy McGriff, and rock & roller Jerry Lee Lewis. He eventually shifted away from classical music and into playing blues and jazz as a means of earning money, while also studying acting for a time. At the start of the 1960s, he passed through the orbit of jazz guru Bill Ashton, and soon after met Art Wood, an alumnus of Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies' Blues Incorporated. Lord began to pick up session work in the mid-'60s, and that's his piano on the Kinks' debut hit, "You Really Got Me." He ended up as a founding member of Art Wood's band the Artwoods -- although the latter group never had a major hit, it was a busy performing outfit and made a large number of television appearances across its three-year existence, which ended in 1967 with a brief period as the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, a name under which the group issued its final single, "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime."

That band's breakup began a pivotal year for Lord. He organized a studio outfit called Santa Barbara Machine Head, with ranks including future Rolling Stone Ron Wood (brother of Art Wood), which recorded a tiny handful of his instrumental compositions -- and in his first stint as a leader, he debuted a sample of the heavy keyboard style that would figure in his subsequent career. To keep paying bills he also passed through the lineup of the Flower Pot Men, where he made the acquaintance of ex-Johnny Kidd bassist Nick Simper. Fate took a hand in the person of ex-Searchers drummer Chris Curtis, who was looking to organize a band of his own, to be called Roundabout -- that effort was cut short by Curtis' personal instability, but through it Lord first met guitarist Ritchie Blackmore. The Curtis gig vanished, but Lord and Blackmore decided to try working together anyway, Simper came aboard, along with Ian Paice and Rod Evans, and the result was Deep Purple.

On the group's early album, Lord's instrument was the dominant part of their sound, and his compositions stood out for their boldness and sophistication (though it was songs such as "Hush" by Joe South and "Kentucky Woman" by Neil Diamond that were selling records for them). For most of the 1960s, Lord had played a mix of piano and organ, but with Deep Purple he concentrated far more on the latter, and especially the sound of the Hammond organ -- the latter had been a favorite of players such as Steve Winwood and, especially, Keith Emerson, but the development of the Mellotron and then the Moog synthesizer drew away most of the best players in rock to those instruments. Lord proved the exception, and he turned the Hammond organ into his signature sound (occasionally augmented by the electric piano and harpsichord) on the first seven years of Deep Purple's work. His aspirations as a composer also came to the fore early on, with pieces that melded classical influences with rock & roll on the group's second and third LPs. In 1969, he delivered the almost LP-length "Concerto for Group and Orchestra," which was performed live with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under conductor Malcolm Arnold in September of that year at Royal Albert Hall.

The concerto and the resulting album elevated the group's status in the British rock music world, and also became their first release in America on Warner Bros., the label where they would make their permanent mark on music -- but it also created a schism within the lineup; Blackmore, especially, had tolerated this digression into classical music, but the notion of any subsequent efforts in that direction was rejected out of hand, even when the BBC commissioned a classical/rock piece soon after the concert. Lord would have to pursue those ideas on his own. Meanwhile, the band returned to rock & roll with a vengeance (and a new lineup, Ian Gillan and Roger Glover having taken over on vocals and bass, respectively, before the concerto performance) on In Rock, Fireball, and Machine Head. Their early-'70s output would ultimately sell in the tens of millions and turn them into international legends, Lord's playing at the center of it in tandem with Blackmore's work.

Lord was also busy with outside projects, most notably The Gemini Suite (1972), an outgrowth of the 1970 BBC commission. He followed this with Sarabande in 1975, the year that Deep Purple initially called it quits -- by that time, Lord and Ian Paice were the only originals still present (he also married Paice's sister-in-law). He spent a year as part of the trio of Paice, Ashton & Lord, did lots of session work, and then joined mid-'70s Purple singer David Coverdale's band Whitesnake. His six years there, from 1978 through 1984, also saw Lord finally adopt the synthesizer, and prove he could match Keith Emerson or Rick Wakeman in the on-stage keyboard arms race. He released two solo projects during this period, Before I Forget (1982) and Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady (1984), even as Whitesnake enjoyed a string of hits.

But Lord was never more than a salaried member of the band, a situation that he didn't relish, and in 1984 he left the group to become part of the re-formed classic Deep Purple lineup, which yielded the Perfect Strangers album and a huge international tour. The revived Deep Purple, which endured numerous lineup shifts and released albums and toured across the 1980s and 1990s, kept Lord busy in between various solo projects (and an increasing amount of soundtrack work) right into 2002, when he formally retired from the band. By that time, he'd been signed to Virgin Classics, a proper classical music label (later absorbed by EMI), and he had begun composing, performing, and recording freestanding classical works and belatedly establishing himself in that musical world. Lord continued to keep his hand in jazz and blues, even forming a band devoted to the latter christened the Hoochie Coochie Men (reviving a name associated with Cyril Davies and Long John Baldry), but straddling several musical worlds. Those performances, and the continued robust sales of the Deep Purple catalog, overlapped with his own 2007 Durham Concerto, a gloriously ambitious six-movement piece whose stylistic elements recalled (without mimicking) the work of Ralph Vaughan Williams, John Tavener, and Malcolm Arnold. He also recorded a classical album in memory of his longtime friend, the author Sir John Mortimer. After battling pancreatic cancer for nearly a year, Jon Lord died of a pulmonary embolism in London on July 16, 2012; he was 71 years old.

Wikipedia:

Jonathan Douglas "Jon" Lord (9 June 1941 – 16 July 2012) was an English composer, pianist, and Hammond organ player known for his pioneering work in fusing rock with classical or baroque forms, especially with Deep Purple, as well as Whitesnake, Paice Ashton Lord, The Artwoods, and The Flower Pot Men. In 1968 Lord co-founded Deep Purple, a hard rock band of which he was regarded as the leader until 1970. Together with the other members, he collaborated on most of his band's most popular songs. He and drummer Ian Paice were the only continual band members during the period from 1968 to 1976, and also from when it was reestablished in 1984 until Lord's retirement from Deep Purple in 2002. On 11 November 2010, he was inducted as an Honorary Fellow of Stevenson College in Edinburgh, Scotland. On 15 July 2011, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Music degree by the University of Leicester.

Early life [edit]

Growing up in Leicester [edit]

Lord was born in Leicester on 9 June 1941 to Miriam (1912–1995; née Hudson) and Reginald Lord. He studied classical piano from the age of five, and this was a recurring trademark influence in his work. In particular his influences ranged from J. S. Bach (a constant connection in his music and his keyboard improvisation) to Medieval popular music and the English tradition of Edward Elgar. He attended Wyggeston Grammar School for Boys where he gained an A-level in music and then worked as a clerk in a solicitor's office for two years.

Lord absorbed the blues sounds that played a key part in his rock career, principally the raw sounds of the great American blues organists Jimmy Smith, Jimmy McGriff and "Brother" Jack McDuff ("Rock Candy"), as well as the stage showmanship of Jerry Lee Lewis. The jazz-blues organ style of these musicians in the 1950s and 1960s, using the trademark blues-organ sound of the Hammond organ (B3 and C3 models) and combining it with the Leslie speaker system (the well-known Hammond-Leslie speaker combination), were seminal influences. Lord also stated that he was heavily influenced by the organ-based progressive rock played by Vanilla Fudge after seeing that band perform in Great Britain in 1967.

His move to London [edit]

Lord moved to London in 1959 - 60, intent on an acting career and enrolling at the Central School of Speech and Drama, in London's Swiss Cottage. Small acting parts followed, and Lord continued playing the piano and the organ in nightclubs and as a session musician to earn a living. He started his band career in London in 1960 with the jazz ensemble The Bill Ashton Combo. Ashton became a key figure in jazz education in Britain, creating what later became the National Youth Jazz Orchestra. Between 1960 and 1963, Lord and Ashton both moved on to Red Bludd's Bluesicians (also known as The Don Wilson Quartet), the latter of which featured the singer Arthur "Art" Wood. Wood had previously sung with Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated and was a junior figure in the British blues movement. In this period, Lord's session credits included playing the keyboards in "You Really Got Me", The Kinks classic number one hit of 1964.

Following the break-up of Redd Bludd's Bluesicians in late 1963, Wood, Lord, and the drummer Red Dunnage put together a new band, The Art Wood Combo. This also included Derek Griffiths (guitar) and Malcolm Pool (bass guitar). Dunnage left in December 1964 to be replaced by Keef Hartley, who had previously replaced Ringo Starr in Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. This band, later known as "The Artwoods", focused on the organ as the bluesy, rhythmic core of their sound, in common with the contemporary bands The Spencer Davis Group (Steve Winwood on organ) and The Animals (with Alan Price). They made appearances on the BBC's Saturday Club radio show and on such TV programs as Ready Steady Go!. It also performed abroad, and it appeared on the first Ready Steady Goes Live, promoting its first single the Lead Belly song "Sweet Mary" -- but significant commercial success eluded it. Its only charting single was "I Take What I Want", which reached number 28 on 8 May 1966.

This band regrouped in 1967 as the "St. Valentine's Day Massacre". This was an attempt to cash in on the 1930s gangster craze set off by the American film Bonnie and Clyde. Hartley left the band in 1967 to join John Mayall's Bluesbreakers. Lord next founded the "Santa Barbara Machine Head", featuring Art's brother, Ronnie Wood, writing and recording three powerful keyboard-driven instrumental tracks, giving a preview of the future style of Deep Purple. Soon thereafter, Lord went on to cover for the keyboard player Billy Day in "The Flower Pot Men", where he met the bass guitarist Nick Simper along with drummer Carlo Little and guitarist Ged Peck. Lord and Simper then toured with this band in 1967 to promote its hit single "Let's Go To San Francisco", but the two men never recorded with this band.

Formation of Deep Purple [edit]

In early 1967, through his roommate Chris Curtis of the Searchers, Lord met businessman Tony Edwards who was looking to invest in the music business. Session guitarist Ritchie Blackmore was called in and he met Lord for the first time, but Chris Curtis's erratic behaviour led the trio nowhere. Edwards was impressed enough by Jon Lord to ask him to form a band after Curtis faded out. Simper was contacted, and Blackmore was recalled from Hamburg. Although top British player Bobby Woodman was the first choice as drummer, during the auditions for a singer, Rod Evans of "The Maze" came in with his own drummer, Ian Paice. Blackmore, who had been impressed by Paice's drumming when he met him in 1967, set up an audition for Paice as well. The band was called the "Roundabout" at first. By March 1968, this became the "Mark 1" lineup of "Deep Purple": Lord, Simper, Blackmore, Paice, and Evans. Lord also helped form the band "Boz" with some of its recordings being produced by Derek Lawrence. "Boz" included Boz Burrell (later of King Crimson and Bad Company), Blackmore (guitarist), Paice (drummer), Chas Hodges (bass guitarist).

Deep Purple [edit]

1968–1970 [edit]

It was in these three years that Lord's trademark keyboard sound emerged. Ignoring the emergence of the Moog synthesizer, as pioneered in rock by such players as Keith Emerson, Lord began experimenting with a keyboard sound produced by the Hammond organ. Lord's version was heavier than a blues sound, and it often featured distortion. This delivered a rhythmic foundation to complement Blackmore's speed and virtuosity on lead guitar. Lord also loved the sound of an RMI 368 Electra-Piano and Harpsichord, which he used on such songs as "Demon's Eye" and "Space Truckin'". In 1973 Lord's original Hammond C3 gave out and he purchased another from Christine McVie of Fleetwood Mac. Also around this time, Lord and his keyboard technician, Mike Phillips, combined his Hammond C3 Organ with the RMI. (Lord kept this particular Hammond C3 until his retirement from the band in 2002.)

Lord pushed the Hammond-Leslie sound through Marshall amplification, creating a growling, heavy, mechanical sound which allowed Lord to compete with Blackmore as a soloist, with an organ that sounded as prominent as the lead guitar. Said one reviewer, "many have tried to imitate [Lord's] style, and all failed." Said Lord himself, "There's a way of playing a Hammond [that's] different. A lot of people make the mistake of thinking that you can play a Hammond with a piano technique. Well, you can, but it sounds like you are playing a Hammond with a piano technique. Really, you have to learn how to play an organ. It's a legato technique; it’s a technique to achieve legato on a non-legato instrument." In early Deep Purple recordings, Lord had appeared to be the leader of the band, though it never made chart success in the UK until the Concerto for Group and Orchestra album (1970). Lord's willingness later to play many of the key rhythm parts gave the guitarist the freedom to let loose both live and on record. On Deep Purple's second and third albums, Lord began indulging his ambition to fuse rock with classical music. An early example of this is the song "Anthem" from the album The Book of Taliesyn (1968), but a more prominent example is the song "April" from the band's self-titled third album (1969). The song is recorded in three parts: 1. Lord and Blackmore only, on keyboards and acoustic guitar, respectively; 2. an orchestral arrangement complete with strings; and 3. the full rock band with vocals. Lord's ambition enhanced his reputation among fellow musicians, but caused tension within the group. Blackmore agreed to go along with Lord's experimentation, provided he was given his head on the next band album.

The resulting Concerto For Group and Orchestra (in 1969) was one of rock's earliest attempts to fuse two distinct musical idioms. Performed live at the Royal Albert Hall on 24 September 1969 (with new band members Ian Gillan and Roger Glover, Evans and Simper having been fired), it was recorded by the BBC and later released as an album. The Concerto gave Deep Purple its first highly publicised taste of mainstream fame and gave Lord the confidence to believe that his experiment and his compositional skill had a future, as well as giving Lord the opportunity to work with established classical figures, such as conductor Sir Malcolm Arnold (knighted in 1993), who brought his technical skills to bear by helping Lord score the work and to protect him from the inevitable disdain of the older members of the orchestra.

1970–1976 [edit]

Purple began work on Deep Purple in Rock, released by their new label Harvest in 1970 and now recognised as one of hard rock's key early works. Lord and Blackmore competed to out-dazzle each other, often in classical-style, midsection 'call and answer' improvisation (on tracks like "Speed King"), something they employed to great effect live. Ian Gillan said that Lord provided the idea on the main organ riff for "Child in Time" although the riff was also based on It's a Beautiful Day's 1969 psychedelic hit song "Bombay Calling". Lord's experimental solo on "Hard Lovin' Man", complete with police-siren interpolation) on the album was his personal favourite among his Deep Purple studio performances.

Deep Purple released a sequence of albums between 1971's Fireball and 1975's Come Taste the Band. Gillan and Glover left in 1973 and Blackmore in 1975, and the band disintegrated in 1976. The highlights of Lord's Purple work in the period include the 1972 album Machine Head (featuring his rhythmic underpinnings on "Smoke on the Water" and "Space Truckin'", plus the organ solos on "Highway Star" and "Lazy"), the sonic bombast of the Made in Japan live album (1972), an extended, effect-laden solo on "Rat Bat Blue" from the Who Do We Think We Are album (1973), and his overall playing on the Burn album from 1974. Roger Glover would later describe Lord as a true "Zen-archer soloist", someone whose best keyboard improvisation often came at the first attempt. Lord's strict reliance on the Hammond C3 organ sound, as opposed to the synthesizer experimentation of his contemporaries, places him firmly in the jazz-blues category as a band musician and far from the progressive-rock sound of Keith Emerson and Rick Wakeman. Lord rarely ventured into the synthesizer territory on Purple albums, often limiting his experimentation to the use of the ring modulator with the Hammond, to give live performances on tracks like Space Truckin' a distinctive 'spacey' sound. Rare instances of his Deep Purple synthesizer use (later including the MiniMoog and other Moog synthesizers) include "'A' 200", the final track from Burn, and "Love Child" on the Come Taste the Band album.

In early 1973 Lord stated:

We're as valid as anything by Beethoven. (NME, March 1973 )

As a composer [edit]

Lord continued to focus on his classical aspirations alongside his Deep Purple career. The BBC, buoyed by the success of the Concerto, commissioned him to write another piece and the resulting "Gemini Suite" was performed by Deep Purple and the Light Music Society under Malcolm Arnold at the Royal Festival Hall in September 1970, and then in Munich with the Kammerorchester conducted by Eberhard Schoener in January 1972. It then became the basis for Lord's first solo album, Gemini Suite, released in November 1972, with vocals by Yvonne Elliman and Tony Ashton and with the London Symphony Orchestra backing a band that included Albert Lee on guitar.

Lord's collaboration with the highly experimental and supportive Schoener resulted in a second live performance of the Suite in late 1973 and a new Lord album with Schoener, entitled Windows, in 1974. It proved to be Lord's most experimental work and was released to mixed reactions. However, the dalliances with Bach on Windows and the pleasure of collaborating with Schoener resulted in perhaps Lord's most confident solo work and perhaps his strongest orchestral album, Sarabande, recorded in Germany in September 1975 with the Philharmonia Hungarica conducted by Schoener.

Composed of eight pieces (from the opening sweep of Fantasia to the Finale), at least five pieces form the typical construction of a baroque dance suite. The key pieces (Sarabande, Gigue, Bouree, Pavane and Caprice) feature rich orchestration complemented sometimes by the interpolation of rock themes, played by a session band comprising Pete York, Mark Nauseef and Andy Summers, with organ and synthesizers played by Lord.

In March 1974, Lord and Paice had collaborated with friend Tony Ashton on First of the Big Bands, credited to 'Ashton & Lord' and featuring a rich array of session talent, including Carmine Appice, Ian Paice, Peter Frampton and Pink Floyd saxophonist/sessioner, Dick Parry. They performed much of the set live at the London Palladium in September 1974.

This formed the basis of Lord's first post-Deep Purple project Paice Ashton Lord, which lasted only a year and spawned a single album, Malice in Wonderland in 1977. He created an informal group of friends and collaborators including Ashton, Paice, Bernie Marsden, Boz Burrell and later, Bad Company's Mick Ralphs, Simon Kirke and others. Over the same period, Lord guested on albums by Maggie Bell, Nazareth and even folk artist Richard Digance. Eager to pay off a huge tax bill upon his return the UK in the late-1970s (Purple's excesses included their own tour jet and a home Lord rented in Hollywood from actress Ann-Margret), Lord joined former Deep Purple band member David Coverdale's new band, Whitesnake in August 1978 (Paice joined them in 1980 and stayed till 1982). Whitesnake was a continuation of the musical style introduced in Paice, Ashton & Lord and was inspired in name and cover art from Lord's 1975 album Sarabande.

Whitesnake, 1978–1984 [edit]

Lord's job in Whitesnake was largely limited to adding colour (or, in his own words, a 'halo') to round out a blues-rock sound that already accommodated two lead guitarists, Bernie Marsden and Micky Moody. He added a Yamaha Electric Grand piano to his set-up and finally a huge bank of synthesizers onstage courtesy of Moog (MiniMoog, Opus, Polymoog) so he could play the 12-bar blues the band often required and recreate string section and other effects. Such varied work is evident on tracks like "Here I Go Again", "Wine, Women and Song", "She's a Woman" and "Till the Day I Die". A number of singles entered the UK charts, taking the now 40-something Lord onto Top of the Pops with regularity between 1980 and 1983. He later expressed frustration that he was a poorly paid hired-hand. His dissatisfaction (and Coverdale's eagerness to revamp the band's line-up and lower the average age to help crack the US market) smoothed the way for the reformation of Deep Purple Mk II in 1984.

Jon Lord's last Whitesnake concert took place in the Swedish TV programme Mandagsborsen in 16 April 1984.

During his tenure in Whitesnake, Lord had the opportunity to record two distinctly different solo albums. 1982s Before I Forget featured a largely conventional eight-song line-up, no orchestra and with the bulk of the songs being either mainstream rock tracks ("Hollywood Rock And Roll", "Chance on a Feeling"), or — specifically on side two — a series of very English classical piano ballads sung by mother and daughter duo, Vicki Brown and Sam Brown (wife and daughter of entertainer Joe Brown) and vocalist Elmer Gantry. The album also boasted the cream of British rock talent, including prolific session drummer (and National Youth Jazz Orchestra alumnus) Simon Phillips, Cozy Powell, Neil Murray, Simon Kirke, Boz Burrell and Mick Ralphs. Lord used synthesizers more than ever before, principally to retain an intimacy with the material and to create a jam atmosphere with old friends like Tony Ashton.

Additionally, Lord was commissioned by producer Patrick Gamble for Central Television to write the soundtrack for their 1984 TV series, Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady, based on the book by Edith Holden, with an orchestra conducted by Alfred Ralston and with a distinctly gentle, pastoral series of themes composed by Lord. Lord became firmly established as a member of UK rock's "Oxfordshire mansion aristocracy" - with a home called "Burntwood", complete with hand-painted Challen baby grand piano, previously owned by Shirley Bassey. He was asked to guest on albums by friends George Harrison (Gone Troppo from 1982) and Pink Floyd's David Gilmour (1983's About Face), Cozy Powell (Octopus in 1983) and to play on an adaptation of Kenneth Grahame's classic, Wind in the Willows. He composed and produced the score for White Fire (1984), which consisted largely of two songs performed by Limelight. In 1985 he made a brief appearance as a member of The Singing Rebel's band (which also featured Eric Clapton, George Harrison,and Ringo Starr) in the Dick Clement and Ian Le Frenais scripted film *Water (1985)(Handmade Films).

In the 1980s he was also a member of an all-star band called Olympic Rock & Blues Circus fronted by Pete York and featuring a rotating line-up of the likes of Miller Anderson, Tony Ashton, Brian Auger, Zoot Money, Colin Hodgkinson, Chris Farlowe and many others. Olympic Rock & Blues Circus toured primarily in Germany between 1981 and 1989. Some musicians, including Lord, took part in York's TV musical extravaganza Superdrumming between 1987 and 1989.

Later work, 1984–2006 [edit]

Lord's re-emergence with Deep Purple in 1984 resulted in huge audiences for the reformed Mk II line-up, including 1985s second largest grossing tour in the US and an appearance in front of 80,000 rain-soaked fans headlining Knebworth on 22 June 1985, all to support the Perfect Strangers album. Playing with a rejuvenated Mk. II Purple line-up (including spells at a health farm to get the band including Lord into shape) and being onstage and in the studio with Blackmore, gave Lord the chance to push himself once again. His 'rubato' classical opening sequence to the album's opener, "Knocking at Your Back Door" (complete with F-Minor to G polychordal harmony sequence), gave Lord the chance to do his most powerful work for years, including the song "Perfect Strangers". Further Deep Purple albums followed, often of varying quality, and by the late-1990s, Lord was clearly keen to explore new avenues for his musical career.

In 1997, he created perhaps his most personal work to date, Pictured Within, released in 1998 with a European tour to support it. Lord's mother Miriam had died in August 1995 and the album is a deeply affecting piece, inflected at all stages by Lord's sense of grief. Recorded largely in Lord's home-away-from-home, the city of Cologne, the album's themes are Elgarian and alpine in equal measure. Lord signed to Virgin Classics to release it, and perhaps saw it as the first stage in his eventual departure from Purple to embark on a low-key and altogether more gentle solo career. One song from Pictured Within, entitled "Wait A While" was later covered by Norwegian singer Sissel Kyrkjebø on her 2003/2004 album My Heart. Lord finally retired from Deep Purple amicably in 2002, preceded by a knee injury that eventually resolved itself without surgery. He said subsequently, "Leaving Deep Purple was just as traumatic as I had always suspected it would be and more so – if you see what I mean". He even dedicated a song to it on 2004's solo effort, Beyond the Notes, called "De Profundis". The album was recorded in Bonn with producer Mario Argandoña between June and July 2004.

Pictured Within and Beyond the Notes provide the most personal work by Lord, and together, have what his earlier solo work perhaps lacks, a very clear musical voice that is quintessentially his. Together, both albums are uniquely crafted, mature pieces from a man in touch with himself and his spirituality. Lord slowly built a small, but distinct position and fan base for himself in Europe. He collaborated with former ABBA superstar and family friend, Frida (Anni-Frid Lyngstad,) on the 2004 track, "The Sun Will Shine Again" (with lyrics by Sam Brown) and performed with her across Europe. He subsequently also performed European concerts to première the 2007-scheduled Boom of the Tingling Strings orchestral piece.

In 2003 he also returned to his beloved R-n-B/blues heritage to record an album of standards in Sydney, with Australia's Jimmy Barnes, entitled Live in the Basement, by Jon Lord and the Hoochie Coochie Men, showing himself to be one of British rock music's most eclectic and talented instrumentalists. Lord was also happy to support the Sam Buxton Sunflower Jam Healing Trust and in September 2006, performed at a star-studded event to support the charity led by Ian Paice's wife, Jackie (twin sister of Lord's wife Vicky). Featured artists on stage with Lord included Paul Weller, Robert Plant, Phil Manzanera, Ian Paice and Bernie Marsden.

Final work, after 2006 [edit]

Two Lord compositions, Boom of the Tingling Strings and "Disguises (Suite for String Orchestra)", were recorded in Denmark in 2006 and released in April 2008 on EMI Classics. Both featured the Odense Symfoniorkester, conducted by Paul Mann. Additionally, a second Hoochie Coochie Men album was recorded in July 2006 in London. This album, Danger – White Men Dancing, was released in October 2007. His Durham Concerto, commissioned by Durham University for its 175th anniversary celebrations, received its world premiere on 20 October 2007 in Durham Cathedral by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, and featured soloists Lord on Hammond Organ, Kathryn Tickell on Northumbrian pipes, Matthew Barley on cello and Ruth Palmer on violin. It became a hit in Classic FM’s "Hall of Fame", alongside his piano concerto Boom of the Tingling Strings.

Lord played piano on George Harrison's posthumously released Brainwashed album (2002). He was also a close friend of John Mortimer, whom he had accompanied on many occasions during Mortimer's performances of "Mortimer Miscellany". Lord released his solo album To Notice Such Things on 29 March 2010. Titled after the main work — a six movement suite for solo flute, piano and string orchestra — the album was inspired by, and was dedicated to, the memory of Jon's dear friend Sir John Mortimer, the English barrister, dramatist, screenwriter, author and creator of British television series Rumpole of the Bailey, who died in January 2009. On its first day of release, the album entered Amazon’s Movers And Shakers index, nestling at No. 12 at the end of the day. Six days later it entered the UK's official classical chart at No. 4. Lord had been commissioned to compose a concerto for Hammond organ and orchestra with special parts for tympani. The piece was to be premiered with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra with Tom Vissgren on tympani in Oslo, Norway in the Spring of 2012. With Vladimir Ashkenazy and Josef Suk, Lord was one of three artistic sponsors of Toccata Classics.

Up until July 2012, he had been working on material with recently formed rock supergroup WhoCares, also featuring singer Ian Gillan from Deep Purple, guitarist Tony Iommi from Black Sabbath, second guitarist Mikko Lindström from HIM, bassist Jason Newsted formerly from Metallica and drummer Nicko McBrain from Iron Maiden. Earlier in the month, Lord had cancelled a performance of his Durham Concerto in Germany for what his website said was a continuation of his medical treatment.

Personal life [edit]

Lord's first marriage was to Judith Feldman, from 1969 until 1981. Jon and Judith had one daughter. Next, Lord married Vickie Gibbs Lord, the twin sister of Ian Paice's wife, Jackie. These two women were the daughters of Frank Gibbs, the owner of the Oakley House Country Club, in Brewood, South Staffordshire. Jon and Vickie also had one daughter.

Death [edit]

In 2011, Lord was found to be suffering from pancreatic cancer. He died on 16 July 2012 at the London Clinic after suffering from a pulmonary embolism.

Hearing of Lord's death, Richard Jones of Welsh band Stereophonics commented "Deep Purple in Rock was the 1st album I bought, RIP Jon Lord". Geezer Butler of the band Black Sabbath wrote "One of the great musicians of my generation", whilst jazz musician Jamie Cullum said "RIP Jon Lord – a hero of the keys." US rock guitarist Tom Morello commented "Deep Purple's cornerstone/keyboardist. So many great great songs and that incredible SOUND of his!" Former keyboard player of rock band Yes, Rick Wakeman, who was a friend of Lord's, said he was "a great fan" and added "We were going to write and record an album before he became ill. His contribution to music and to classic rock was immeasurable and I will miss him terribly." The Kinks posted at their website: "RIP Jon Lord. A fantastic pianist and composer. With The Kinks, he played keyboards on You Really Got Me. Legend." Dee Snider of heavy metal band Twisted Sister tweeted: "What an amazing musician and a true gentleman. We lost a great one", while Slash, former guitarist with Guns n' Roses commented, "One of the biggest, baddest, heaviest sounds in heavy metal. One of a kind."

Singer Bryan Adams wrote online, "RIP Jon Lord – incredible organist for Deep Purple, one of my fave bands growing up" while veteran DJ Bob Harris said Lord was "a gentleman." Actor Ewan McGregor tweeted, "Jon played with my great friend Tony Ashton. They'll be jamming upstairs now!"

Singer Anni-Frid Lyngstad (ABBA), who described Jon Lord as her "dearest friend", paid him tribute at the 2013 edition of Zermatt Unplugged, the annual music festival which both he and she served as patrons. "He was graceful, intelligent, polite, with a strong integrity," she said. "(He) had a strong empathy and a great deal of humour for his own and other people's weaknesses."

National Turk commented, "Every kid who gets a guitar quickly learns to bat out the guitar riffs of "Smoke on the Water". But listeners should be just as aware of the fat, satisfying chords of Jon Lord’s organ, a force which gave Blackmore’s iconic chords their ideal answer."