Lord of the Keyboard - Jon Lord has died

Deep Purple founding member and keyboardist Jon Lord died yesterday at the London Clinic aged 71 after a long illness with cancer, leaving behind widow Vickie and daughters Amy and Sara. He had been battling pancreatic cancer since August of last year and now he succumbed to a pulmonary embolism. One of the greats in rock history is gone. "Even today, when I sit at the Hammond organ, I feel like I'm in heaven," said the rock legend a little over a year ago.

Lord was a classically trained pianist who gave Deep Purple its signature sound with his Hammond organ. Titles like "Smoke on the Water" or "Highway Star" shaped the attitude towards life of an entire generation. Released in 1972, these songs continue to be played on rock stages around the world to this day. Jon Lord made a significant contribution to reconciling rock music with classical music: the once “loudest band in the world” performed with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in the Royal Albert Hall with a work for rock band and orchestra written by Jon Lord.

Lord was born on June 9, 1941 in the English city of Leicester. He made his first musical experiences at the family piano. At the beginning of the 60s, Lord dangled through the jazz bars.
His first band, in which he played regularly, was the saxophone-dominated Bill Ashton Combo. As a keyboard player he then accompanied a number of other bands such as the Artwoods, led by Art Wood, the brother of the later Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood. The great career began in 1968 with Deep Purple. Both in the studio and on stage, Jon Lord acted as a creative source of ideas. In addition, he always took the time for solo works borrowing from classical music.

When Lord leaned over his instrument in a concentrated manner at live concerts by Deep Purple, then despite one or two show interludes, the audience gazed at the stage in excited excitement instead of dismantling the seats in the hall. But that Lord was not a worldly art rocker, he demonstrated after Deep Purple broke up for the first time in 1976. Shortly afterwards, he joined Whitesnake, the band of ex-Purple singer David Coverdale, to play hearty blues hard rock.

Jon Lord was a member of Deep Purple from its inception in 1968 through 2002. At the end of an eventful band history with crises, dissolution and comeback, Jon Lord performed for the last time with Deep Purple in September 2002. But even after that, Jon Lord kept playing the keys, producing other albums or performing with orchestral works. Last year he could still be heard with his Jon Lord Blues Project - until he announced in August 2011 that he was suffering from pancreatic cancer. Now he has lost the battle against the disease.