Jon Lord - An Appreciation

Jon lord was one of Hard Rock's Distinguished gentlemen. A classically trained musician who almost came close to being a theater actor, but settled on being a musician instead.He died on Monday July 16 while suffering a fatal pulmonary embolism in London after a long battle with pancreatic cancer.

He played with bands The Artwoods, the Flowerpot Men, Deep Purple, Paice, Ashton, Lord, and Whitesnake. With Keith Emerson, and Rick Wakemen they brought showmanship to  Rock keyboard and pioneered it to  an art form.

In January of 1968, Chris Curtis of the searchers who had put together an idea called Roundabout convinced Lord and Simpler to track down a guitarist by the name of Ritchie Blackmore and a telagram was sent as well as a friendship and partnership was born.

In Dave Thompson's book titled The Deep Purple story- on page 27, Blackmore arrived in the middle of a snow stormed outside of Deeves Hall with an acoustic guitar in hand and had no place to go.

The partnership with Lord was exciting, thrilling, and at times exsaperrating. You can hear hear this on a bonus track from the 1971 album "Fireball" titled "Slowtrain". The back and forth exchange between Blackmore's guitar and Lord's Hammond Organ was a site to be hold.

From 1969 to 1973, the mk2 lineup was one of the greatest teams in rock and 1970 to 1973 they hit a grand slam home run of  "In Rock", "Firebal"l, "Machine Head", and "Made In Japan".

In the last fifteen years, Jon returned to his classical routes, penning numerous works for orchestra, chorus, chamber ensemble and solo piano. In 2007 he was commissioned by Durham University to compose a work as part of the university’s 175th anniversary celebrations. The resulting Durham Concerto is an epic three-part, six-movement work inspired by local references to the ancient city and celebrated sites such as the Palace Green and Durham Cathedral. Scored for large orchestra it features an array of solo opportunities for violin, cello, Northumbrian pipes and – Jon’s speciality – Hammond organ. Durham Concerto was premiered by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra who later recorded the work for AVIE. Released in 2008, the album was the highest new entry in Classic FM’s 2009 Hall of Fame.

  Jon Lord- (9 June 1941 – 16 July 2012)