John Douglas "Jon" Lord (9 June 1941 – 16 July 2012) was an English keyboardist and composer. In 1968, Lord co-founded the hard rock band Deep Purple. Lord performed on most of the band's most popular songs; he and drummer Ian Paice were the only continuous members in the band between 1968 and 1976, and also from its revival in 1984 until his retirement in 2002. He also played for the bands Whitesnake, Paice Ashton Lord, the Artwoods, the Flower Pot Men and Santa Barbara Machine Head.
Lord became known for his pioneering work in fusing rock with classical or baroque forms, especially with Deep Purple. His distinctive organ playing during Deep Purple's hard rock period was essential to the band's signature heavy sound and contributed to the early development of heavy metal. 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 at De Montfort Hall by the University of Leicester. Lord was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on 8 April 2016 as a member of Deep Purple.
Lord was born in Leicester on 9 June 1941 to Miriam (1912–1995; née Hudson) and Reginald Lord, and lived in the city until he was 20. His father was an amateur saxophonist and encouraged Lord to play music from an early age. He studied classical piano from the age of five, with a local teacher, Frederick Allt, and this focus on a classical grounding to his material was a recurring trademark in his work, in composition, in arranging and in his instrumental solos on piano, organ and electronic keyboards. In particular his influences ranged from Johann Sebastian Bach (a constant reference in his music and in his keyboard improvisation) to Medieval popular music and the English tradition of Edward Elgar. He attended Wyggeston Grammar School for Boys between 1952 and 1958 where he gained O Level passes in French, music and mathematics, participated in amateur dramatics and the school choir alongside his organ and piano studies, 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 jazz and blues organists, such as Wild Bill Davis, Jimmy Smith, Jimmy McGriff ("All About My Girl") and Jack McDuff ("Rock Candy"), as well as the stage showmanship of Jerry Lee Lewis and performers like Buddy Holly, whom he saw perform at the De Montfort Hall in Leicester in March 1958. The jazz-blues organ style of black R&B organ players 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 on Lord. 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, and earlier by the personal direction he received from British organ pioneer Graham Bond.
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. Following a celebrated student rebellion he became a founder of Drama Centre London, from where he graduated in 1964. Small acting parts followed, including in the British TV series, Emergency Ward 10, 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, brother of guitarist Ronnie Wood. Wood had previously sung with Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated and was a junior figure in the British blues movement.
Somewhere around this time, Lord altered his first name spelling from "John" to the perhaps more contemporary "Jon".
In this period, Lord's session credits included playing the keyboards in the number one song "You Really Got Me" by The Kinks, released in 1964; however in a Guitar World interview, Kinks frontman Ray Davies stated it was actually Arthur Greenslade playing piano on that particular track.
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 (with Steve Winwood on organ) and The Animals (with Alan Price on organ). They made appearances on the BBC's Saturday Club radio show and on such TV programs as Ready Steady Go!. They also performed abroad, and appeared on the first Ready Steady Goes Live, promoting their first single the Lead Belly song "Sweet Mary" — but significant commercial success eluded them. Their 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 & the Bluesbreakers. Lord next founded the blues-influenced Santa Barbara Machine Head, featuring Art's younger 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 never recorded with this band.
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 alongside partners Ron Hire and John Coletta (HEC Enterprises). Session guitarist Ritchie Blackmore was called in and 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. Said Edwards, "I couldn't really cope with [Curtis] but I had a great rapport with Jon Lord; here was somebody sensible, somebody I could communicate with on my level." Simper was contacted, and Blackmore was recalled from Hamburg. Although top British player Bobbie Clarke 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 and began rehearsals at Deeves Hall in Hertfordshire. In March 1968, this became the "Mark 1" line-up of "Deep Purple": Lord, Simper, Blackmore, Paice, and Evans.
Lord also did session work in the late 1960s with the band "Boz", along with Blackmore (guitar) and Paice (drums), given that Boz was being produced by Derek Lawrence who produced Deep Purple's first three albums. Boz was led by Boz Burrell (vocals/guitar, later bassist for King Crimson and Bad Company) and also included Chas Hodges (bass guitar).
Deep Purple (1968-1976/1984-2002)
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 driving the Hammond organ through Marshall amplifiers in an effort to match the attack and volume of Blackmore's guitar. Lord's version was heavier than a blues sound, and it often featured distortion and a far harder, industrial type sound that became the trademark Jon Lord organ sound. Rick Wakeman publicly expressed admiration for Lord's mould-breaking work on the organ. 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'".