Eddie Hardin:

JON LORD – THE GENTLEMAN OF MUSIC

My first encounter with Jon, well, I must have been 16! He was playing with THE ARTWOODS and I was rehearsing in a room nearby; I was immediately struck by the growling sound of his Hammond. I tried my best to be inconspicuous, though Jon spotted me in the shadows and asked me to leave.

Little did I know that in future years I would go on to tour with DEEP PURPLE when HARDIN & YORK were at their peak and DEEP PURPLE were playing the Albert Hall. I went on to work with Jon on several of my own projects, WIZARDS CONVENTION, THE BUTTERFLY BALL, WIND IN THE WILLOWS.

Personally I remember him with great affection and during one of our meetings at The Speakeasy in London he flattered me by saying, “There are only three Hammond players and they are Keith Emerson, myself and yourself”!

He will be greatly missed, not only as a friend but as a fine musician. All my sincerest condolences go to his family.

My thoughts will always be with you, Jon, and maybe one day we will meet again.

Don Airey:

England has just lost one of it’s finest. With happy memories of all your kind words and actions towards Mike and Myself over the last few years, and the monumental musical example you set over the last 40. RIP

Nick Simper:

During the last few years, the music business has lost some of its most seminal players, people who inspired me and many others. We said goodbye to my three favourite guitarists, the three “Micks” as I called them, namely Mick Keane, Mick Green, and Mickey King. We also lost Tony Dangerfield, Neil Christian, Jet Harris and the man who played a big part in our lives, Jim Marshall.

This week another name has been added to the list, as we learned of the death of Jon Lord.

I first met Jon, very briefly, late one night at the famous Shepherds Bush pie stall, one of the few places where food (of a kind) could be obtained during the early hours. It was the summer of 1966, and we were both, in those days, at the top of our game. I was playing with one of rock’s biggest names, Johnny Kidd & the Pirates, whilst Jon was with the Artwoods, one of the country’s top R & B groups. Neither of us spoke, just exchanging nods, as Kidd spoke animatedly with the Artwood’s drummer, an old friend. Little did we know that in less than two years we would be best friends, climbing the U.S. charts together, and creating a supergroup that would still be working nearly half a century later!

Fate was to throw us together in late ’67, working with the chart-topping group the Flowerpot Men, and it was Jon who talked me into leaving this money-spinning outfit to create a new band. Together with Ritchie Blackmore, and briefly, Bobby Woodman, we sowed the seeds that became Deep Purple. Jon and I hit it off from the first day that we worked together, and for the next two years we lived together, firstly at my parents’ home, then at Deeves Hall, and finally sharing a room at the Deep Purple house in Acton, West London. On tour we always roomed together, and life was one big round of fun! He called me his best friend, and I thought of him as the brother that I never had.

Sadly, as is well documented, none of this was to last! During the next forty years we both moved in different directions, but strangely, in the last couple of years, whilst our paths did not cross, they came very close to doing so. During my recent trips to Europe with Nasty Habits, we played where Jon had been very recently, or was due to perform very soon. Several times I came across his contemporaries who would pass on “greetings from Jon”. It seemed only a matter of time before we met up again on the same bill, or in the same town. Finally it looked on the cards as we were both appearing on the same weekend at a festival at St. Veit in Austria. Sadly, Jon cancelled his appearance, and it was then that I learned of the seriousness of his illness. During our show I asked the audience to join us in sending good vibes to Jon for a speedy recovery, and the resulting roar from the crowd said it all!
Since that gig, last September, we all constantly enquired after Jon’s health, hoping for a happy outcome, but sadly it was not to be. However, his music will live on, a fitting memorial to a great musician, and the memories of those exciting, pioneering days will remain with me forever. Rest in peace Jon.

Jon Lord’s home town newspaper Henley Standard also did a tribute to him which puts his character in quite a unique perspective:

Lord was a close friend of author, playwright and barrister Sir John Mortimer, who died in 2009, and they performed together at the Kenton Theatre in Henley. Nansi Diamond, an amateur actress and Kenton stalwart, said: “Jon Lord was a lovely man — always gentlemanly, courteous, with immense charm and a self-deprecating manner, somehow not my perception of a rock star.

“He joined John Mortimer on the stage at two of John’s many Kenton Theatre charity events. He insisted on using his own precious electronic white grand piano on which he would entertain us brilliantly. We would go to his house and dismantle it, under Jon’s watchful eye, load it into a van, re-assemble it on stage and then reverse the process afterwards.”

Read more in Henley Standard.

British radio station GTFM did a special on Jon Lord in the wake of his death. It is one of the better done ones and covers his whole career in and outside of Purple. You can listen to it online (sadly, sans the music, due to licensing restrictions).

Listen to the second half of the show with excerpts from Jon’s interviews he had done over the years and music included (the first part is just the host reading online tributes to Jon that we’ve posted elsewhere):

Thanks to Yvonne Osthausen for the info.

While being in Nashville working on the new album, Roger Glover, Ian Paice and Don Airey took part in the benefit show for Jamie Simmons, a local bass player who was severely injured in a motorcycle accident earlier this year. Here they are, with Mike Simmons on Guitar and Greg Mangus singing, at the Mercury Lounge in Nashville, Tennessee, on July 15:

Thanks to ustitsagaya for the video and to metropic1 and Andrey Gusenkov for bringing it to your attention.

According to  Blabbermouth , the track listing for “Re-Machined: A Tribute To Machine Head” has been finalized and features:

1. Smoke On The Water – CARLOS SANTANA
2. Highway Star – CHICKENFOOT
3. Maybe I’m A Leo – GLENN HUGHES, CHAD SMITH, LUIS MALDONADO
4. Pictures Of Home – BLACK LABEL SOCIETY
5. Never Before – KINGS OF CHAOS (Joe Elliott, Steve Stevens, Duff McKagan, Matt Sorum, Arlan Schierbaum)
6. Smoke On The Water – THE FLAMING LIPS
7. Lazy – JIMMY BARNES, JOE BONAMASSA
8. Space Truckin’ – IRON MAIDEN
9. When A Blind Man Cries – METALLICA
10. Highway Star – Glen HUGHES, STEVE VAI, CHAD SMITH, LACHLAN DOLEY

Rock Backpages have reprinted a vintage interview with Jon Lord, which originally appeared in the November 1970 issue of Beat Instrumental:

Do you believe in musical discipline?

Yes. You take the great symphony writers like Beethoven…they wrote within an incredibly strict framework…you know, it must have a first subject, a second subject, a dominant key…and it must have an exposition based around the theme — that’s just the first movement! But look what they produced…incredible music, through putting themselves into a restricted formula, and then expanding from there. It’s often like the restriction on a painter. A piece of canvas, some oils and a brush are his restrictions, and he works within those limits, and extends beyond them. Working against a restriction — for me — often produces greater things than getting rid of all boundaries. Free from jazz means absolutely nothing to me. Because there are no boundaries.

What is the guiding musical philosophy of Deep Purple?

We believe in experiment and excitement within the framework that we have set ourselves at this particular moment in time. That will change…we will extend, obviously. We’ll get older, get different influences; we’ve not reached a point where we are perfectly happy and contented to develop naturally. We were trying to develop un-naturally before. We would grasp all sorts of different ideas at once…like a child in a garden full of flowers: he wants them all at once. When Ian [Gillan] and Roger [Glover] joined, something very nice happened within the group.

Read more in Rock’s Backpages.

Thanks to BraveWords for the info.

Not all the news this week are of a somber nature. Life goes on and Black Country Communion have gathered in the studio in Los Angeles to work on their third album.

Thanks to BraveWords for the info.

Bernie Marsden:

June and July have been very busy, but all has been brought back to base with the loss of my great friend and colleague Jon Lord on Monday 16th July. Jon Lord was to many millions of people THE keyboard player in the great days of Deep Purple, and so he was. But he was so much more than a musician.

I first met the great man in 1976; I was auditioning for a gig with his new band Paice Ashton and Lord. I had seen the demise of Purple, attending gigs with both Ritchie and Tommy Bolin, and so when I received a call from Cozy Powell regarding the new band I went for it. I went to an old cinema in West London, owned by ELP, Manticore. There I was ushered into a waiting room with about a dozen other guitar players, that story is not for this time, but is of interest.

I entered the heady world of DPO, Jon was waiting in the room, smiling, strong handshake and a grin when he said, “You do exist then”, I had been rather slow in following Cozy’s instructions, ouch! Ian Paice was a few feet away, raised his hand to say hello, Tony Ashton was opposite Jon, two keyboards set up, and one was Jon Lord, now I knew this was going to be different.

I had been listening to the guitar players going in before me, all pretty much trying to be Ritchie Blackmore, and failing! I thought I was on the right track when we played “How Long” by Ace, Ian knew the groove, I sang it and Jon said to begin, after a couple of verses Jon stopped the proceedings. He came over to me and asked me to show him the changes in the bridge of the song, the great Jon Lord asking me to show him. I state this to show what a man he was, he could have worked out, probably had already, knew the changes backwards, but by asking me he instilled huge confidence in me.

I played a lot of rhythm guitar, waiting for a nod from Jon to solo, took my time and tried to be as cool as I could. Bear in mind I am playing with Jon, and Ian Paice, this was quite a definitive moment for me. We played another couple of grooves, Ian came over and introduced himself, and Ashton kissed me on the forehead!

Jon just smiled, said thank you for coming down and that I would be hearing from them. He asked me if I knew any DP songs, I thought I was about to lose the gig, I said, “Not really, I know a bit of Dance on the Water”. He looked me in the eye, “Smoke on the Water”, he said, “Sorry” I said. They did call the next day.
Jon Lord, great musician, raconteur, writer, funny, intelligent, gifted, family man, friend for life.

Love to Vicky, Amy and Sara Lord
Rest in Peace my friend.

Ioannis:

It was a shock to me to hear the news on a dreary Monday morning, One of my heroes — Jon Lord — the man who made the organ sound cool in hard rock, had passed away on this day. I began my work with the band In 1997 with the album Abandon and have worked on every one of their studio albums since. The conduit to the band was Roger Glover whom I worked closely with creatively. During the work I was like a teenage fan listening to the stories and escapades he told me of the band.

I was in awe when I met Jon Lord, a class act, a gifted musician a real gentleman and an amazing musician. Having lost both my mom and uncle to pancreatic cancer, I can only imagine how hard this must have been for him and his family. My heart goes out to all of his loved ones, friends and associates.

R.I.P. Jon, you will never be forgotten, Highway Star and Space Trucking will never sound the same again.

BBC’s Last Word: Listen to Ritchie, Rick Wakeman and Geoff Barton speak about Jon Lord — and Jon speaking about how he would like to be remembered (from an interview given the week before he died):

BBC Last Word by JonLord.org

Please leave your comments at JonLord.org.

BBC Radio 4 will play a tribute to Jon Lord in this week’s Last Word which will air on Friday, July 20 at 16:00 local time. The show will be available as a podcast afterwards. Geoff Barton will be on the air and Classic Rock alludes that they’ve managed to secure a rare interview with Ritchie Blackmore as well.

Thanks to Kevin Dixon for the info.