Jump to content

Jon Lord

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Ovaismnaqvi (talk | contribs) at 13:51, 4 February 2007 (→From Purple to Now 1984-). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

File:Jon Lord.jpg
Jon Lord.

Jon Douglas Lord (born Leicester 9 June, 1941) is an English composer, Hammond organ and piano player.

Born in Leicester, he has been a member of Deep Purple, Whitesnake, Paice, Ashton & Lord, The Artwoods, and Flower Pot Men. He is recognised for his unique Hammond organ blues-rock sound, compositional flair in both the rock and classical idioms and career principally with the heavy rock band, Deep Purple. In 1968, Lord co-founded Deep Purple. Lord and drummer, Ian Paice, were the only constant band members during the band's existence from 1968 to 1976 and then from the time they reformed in 1984 to Lord's departure in 2002. Lord retired from Deep Purple after their UK tour that year, and was replaced by ex-Ozzy Osborne and Rainbow (band) keyboard player Don Airey.

One of his most ambitous works was his composition Concerto for Group and Orchestra which was performed at the Royal Albert Hall in 1969 with Deep Purple right after establishing the legendary Mk II lineup with Blackmore, Gillan, Glover and Paice. The concerto was later revisited in 1999 with another performance at the Albert Hall with DP, guitarist Steve Morse replacing Ritchie Blackmore.

Lord had been considering leaving the band for some time, due to his busy touring schedule and his concerto being aired again, after thirty years, 1999. In 2001, Don Airey was hired to substitute Lord for a month after a knee injury. Lord decided to leave the band for good in 2002.

Lord is well-respected for his mastery of the Hammond Organ and for his eclectic compositional talents and in his 34-year Deep Purple career, you can hear his distinctive solos amidst many classic tracks in the Deep Purple cannon.

Before Deep Purple 1941-1968

Born in Leicester, 9th June 1941 (parents the now-deceased Reg and Miriam Lord)1, Lord studied classical piano as a youngster from age five and those influences continue to be a recurring trademark in his band and solo work. His influences ranged from Bach (a recurring, life-long connection in Lord's music and even in his keyboard improvision), to Medieval-period popular music and stretched to the English tradition of Elgar. Simultaneously, he absorbed the blues sounds that played a key part in his rock career and helped create the "Jon Lord sound", principally the raw sounds of the great American blues organists Jimmy Smith, Jimmy McGriff and "Brother" Jack MacDuff ("Rock Candy"), as well as the stage showmanship of Jerry Lee Lewis. The jazz-blues organ sounds coming from those musicians in the 1950s and 1960s were seminal influences on Lord, the trademark blues-organ sound created by utilising the blues scales on the Hammond organ (B3 and C3 models) and combining it with the now classic Leslie speaker system (the well-known Hammond-Leslie combo).

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 parts followed on such contemporary TV series as "Emergency Ward Ten" and others and Lord continued playing piano and organ in clubs and as a session musician to make ends meet.

He started his London band career in 1960 with the jazz ensemble, the Bill Ashton Combo. Bill Ashton (jazz musician), MBE, has subsequently become a key figure in jazz education in the UK, creating the London Schools' Orchestra in 1965, which later became the National Youth Jazz Orchestra. Between 1960 and 1963, Lord (along with Ashton) moved onto Red Bludd's Bluesicians (also known as The Don Wilson's Quartet), the latter of which featured Arthur "Art" Wood on vocals. Wood (who died in November 2006), was the elder brother of (later) Rolling Stones guitarist, Ron Wood. Art Wood had previously sung with British blues outfit, Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated and was a junior figure in the British blues movement of the early-1960s, that spawned much of the talent in British rock music in the 1960s and 1970s. In this period, Lord's session credits included playing keyboards on You Really Got Me (The Kinks 1964 classic) and following the break-up of Redd Bludd's Bluesicians, Wood, Lord and drummer Red Dunnage put together a new band.

Formed in London in late-1963 as the Art Wood Combo, the band consisted of Wood (as vocalist), Derek Griffiths (guitar), Malcolm Pool (bass), Lord (organ) and Dunnage (on drums). When Dunnage left in 1964, he was replaced by Keef Hartley, who had previously been with Rory Storm & the Hurricanes, replacing Ringo Starr (who in turn left to replace Pete Best in the Beatles).

The Artwoods were worthy of comparison to similar Deep South blues-influenced bands such as the Spencer Davis Group (Steve Winwood, organ) and the Animals (Alan Price, organ), especially given those bands' similar focus on the organ as the bluesy, rhythmic core of their sounds. However, the same scale of commercial success eluded The Artwoods. They did make appearances on TV shows such as Ready, Steady Go, performed abroad and appeared on the first Ready Steady Goes Live, promoting their first single Sweet Mary.

Their only chart single was I Take What I Want (released on 29th April 1966), the Sam & Dave cover, which reached No 28 on 8th May 1966. They released an EP entitled Jazz in Jeans and an album Art Gallery (both on Decca Records) in 1966. The album included original and cover material from 1964 to 1966 (the album was reissued by Edsel in the 1980s). The band reconfigured in 1967 and a name change followed: to St Valentine's Day Massacre to cash-in on the 1930s gangster connotations of films of the time like Bonnie & Clyde. They did not achieve success. Keef Hartley left in 1967 to join the well-known John Mayall's Bluesbreakers. Jon Lord joined Santa Barbara Machine Head (the band featuring Art's brother, the young Ron Wood) and left soon after to form The Flower Pot Men, featuring later Deep Purple Mk I bassist, Nick Simper. Lord toured with the band, but did not record with them.

In early 1968, now intent to capture a heavier sound (given the emergence Cream (band) and the Jimi Hendrix Experience and the eventual success of similar "heavy rock" bands such as Led Zeppelin), Lord helped form Boz, featuring Boz Burrell on lead vocals (later to find fame with 1970s supergroup Bad Company), session guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, drummer Ian Paice and bassist, Chas Hodges (later of 'cockney' pop group, Chas & Dave). That effort was short-lived, but spawned the earliest near-Deep Purple incarnation, Roundabout (in early 1968), which from March 1968 included a line-up that became the eventual Deep Purple Mk I unit: Rod Evans (vocals), Nick Simper (bass), Lord, Blackmore and Paice.

Deep Purple 1968-1976

It is in this period that Lord's classic keyboard sound emerged. Blackmore was keen to take the band into new, "heavy" territory and to replicate the success of Led Zeppelin. Lord began experimenting to create a keyboard sound that was based on the Hammond organ as the centrepiece of his set-up (in spite of the emergence of the Moog synthesiser in rock through the experimentation of keyboard players like Keith Emerson), but that was heavier than a blues sound and delivered a rhymthic foundation to complement Blackmore's speed and virtuosity as a highly technically-gifted lead guitarist.

With a technician, he began to experiment by pushing the Hammond-Leslie sound through Marshall amplification and what resulted was the backbone of the Deep Purple sound: a growling, heavy, mechanical sound that gave Purple a unique rhythmic counterpoint to Blackmore's lead playing, but that allows Lord to compete with Blackmore with an organ that sounded as heavy as a lead guitar. From early recording like Hush (1968) to the eventual seminal In Rock album (1970) it is clear that Lord's sound was as critical to the Deep Purple sound as Blackmore's. In fact, Lord's willingness to play many of the key rhythm parts to underpin Blackmore, gave the guitarist the freedom to let loose both live and on record.

By 1969, the band were at a crossroads: Blackmore was keen to stick to hard riff-based heavy rock, whilst Lord began indulging in a passion to fuse rock with classical music. Blackmore agreed to go with Lord's experimentation and 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 24th September 1969 (with new band members Ian Gillan and Roger Glover making up the classic Mk II line up), recorded by the BBC and later released as an album, the Concerto gave Deep Purple their first highly-publicised taste of mainstream fame and gave Lord the confidence to believe that his experiment and his compositional skill had a future. The Concerto also gave Lord the chance to work with established classical figures, like Malcolm Arnold, who conducted the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in the performance and who also brought his technical skills to bear by helping Lord score the work and to protect him from the inevitable sneering of the older members of the orchestra.

Classical dalliance over, Purple began work on the now classic In Rock album, released by EMI in 1970 and now one of heavy rock's key early works. Lord's style is a critical counterpart to Blackmore's playing on the record and it was clear that the tension between the two, competing to out-dazzle each other, often in classical-style, mid-section 'call and answer' improvisation (on track's like Speed King), something they employed to great effect live, was the start of a unique sound in rock and the basis of powerful live performances. Similarly, the now classic Child In Time features Lord's playing to maximum tonal effect. Lord's experimental solo on "Hard Lovin' Man" (complete with police-siren interpolation) on the album is his personal favourite amongst his various Deep Purple studio performances.

Template set, Deep Purple released a sequence of albums between 1971's Fireball and 1976's Come Taste the Band, by now, replacing the departed Blackmore with American guitarist Tommy Bolin, whose heroin-related death in 1976 finally forced the band to call it a day and left original members (and now brothers-in-law through marriage) Lord and Paice and relatively new members David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes, looking for new musical directions. Some of their paths would cross again later in the decade. The highlight of Lord's Purple work in the period include his rhythmic underpinning of the classics Smoke on the Water, Highway Star and Space Truckin' from Machine Head (1972), his superb playing on the Burn album from 1974 and the sonic bombast of the Made in Japan live album from 1972.

Roger Glover later described Lord as a true 'Zen-archer soloist', someone whose best keyboard improvision often came at the first attempt. Alongside Lord's strict reliance on the Hammond C3 organ sound, as opposed to the synthesiser experimentation of his 1970s contemporaries, that approach places Lord firmly in the jazz-blues category as a band musician and far from the progressive-rock sound of Keith Emerson and Rick Wakeman. That distinction would often cause Lord to be seen in a lesser light than flashier players like Emerson, who melded rock and classical music, but in an entirely more bombastic way than the more measured (and conventional) Lord. Lord himself would rarely venture into the synthesiser 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 synthesiser use (later including the MiniMoog and other Moog analogue synthesisers) include the "A" 200 finale track from Burn.

However, it is clear especially from live recordings (even including the California Jam concert recording from 1974), that Lord's technical skill with the Hammond and its accessories, his ability to meld the Hammond soul to a heavy rock sound, his note control and speed and his ability to match Blackmore's technical fireworks onstage, suggest that his playing skills and trademark easy confidence (but perhaps not his ego), were on par with Emerson, Wakeman and Brian Eno. In fact, Lord's working experience of scoring for and performing with leading orchestras far exceeded that of his rock contemporaries by the late 1970s. Emerson ventured into similar territory a near decade after Lord, with his Piano Concerto No. 1 (with the London Philharmonic Orchestra) from the ELP 'Works Volume 1' album of 1977.

Lord as Composer

In Rock set the tone for the Purple sound and Lord continued to focus on his classical aspirations alongside his Deep Purple career and often, as a release from the grind of touring that typified the band's career from 1970 to 1973 and a tension that eventually resulted in the departure of Gillan and Glover. The BBC, buoyed by the success of the Concerto, commissioned Lord to do another work 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 Kammarorchestra 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 Eberhard Schoener, entitled Windows, in 1974. It proved to be Lord's most experimental work and was released to mixed reactions compared to the more conventional Lord-composed Concerto and Gemini Suite albums. However, the dalliances with Bach on Windows and the pleasure of collaborating with Schoener resulted in perhaps Lord's most confident solo work to date and perhaps his strongest orchestral album of all, Sarabande, recorded in Germany between the 3rd and 6th September 1975, with the Philharmonia Hungarica conducted by Schoener. The strength of the album coincided with the dissolution of the Mk IV Deep Purple line-up and the album was released in October 1976.

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 and the key pieces, entitled Sarabande, Gigue, Bouree, Pavane and Caprice feature rich orchestration complemented sometimes by the interpolation of rock themes, played by a session band comprising of Pete York, Mark Nauseef and Andy Summers, later to find fame as lead guitarist in The Police and with organ and synthesisers played by Lord.

Alongside his classical bent, Lord continued to find opportunity to work in the rock vein, but away from Deep Purple. In March 1974, he and Paice collaborated with friend Tony Ashton (died, May 2001), on an album, First of the Big Bands, credited under the band monicker '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.

That collaboration gave Lord a new opportunity when Purple dissolved in 1976 and that year saw the formation of the short-lived 'supergroup' Paice, Ashton & Lord (PAL) in August 1976, a project that lasted only a year but that resulted in the release of a single album, Malice in Wonderland in 1977. Such post-Purple freedom gave the popular Lord the chance to create an informal group of friends and collaborators for himself and people like Tony Ashton, Bernie Marsden, Ian Paice, Boz Burrell and later, Bad Company's Mick Ralphs, Simon Kirke and others, would work on various Lord solo projects. Over the same period, Lord guested on albums by Maggie Bell, Nazareth and even 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 and in 1980, Ian Paice made his debut with that same band, on the third Coverdale/Whitesname album, Ready An' Willing.

Whitesnake 1978-1984

The requirements of Lord in Whitesnake were 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. Whilst Lord's work was a colourful addition to the Whitesnake sound (Lord now adding a Yamaha Electric Grand piano to his set-up and finally a huge bank of synthesisers onstage courtesy of Moog (MiniMoog, Opus, PolyMoog), all to give him the opportunity to play the 12-bar blues the band often required and to 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 and a number of singles by the band entered the UK charts, taking the now 40-something Lord onto Top of the Pops with regularity between 1980 and 1983. Lord later expressed frustration that he was a poorly-paid hired hand in the band and his dissatisfaction (and Coverdale's keenness to revamp the band's line-up and lower the average age to help crack the US market) resulted in Lord and Paice leaving to take part in the reformation of Deep Purple in 1984.

During his tenure in Whitesnake, Lord did have a chance to do two distinctly different solo albums. 1982's 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, the late Vicki Brown (who passed away in 1991) and Sam Brown (wife and daughter of entertainer Joe Brown (singer)) 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 synthesisers 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 Rawlston and with a distinctly gentle, pastoral series of themes composed by Lord. Lord, now firmly established as a member of UK rock/Oxfordshire mansion aristocracy (in Lord's case, a home called Burntwood, complete with hand-painted Challen baby grand piano, previous owner, Shirley Bassey), 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.

From Purple to Now 1984-

Lord's reemergence with Deep Purple in 1984 resulted in huge audiences for the reformed Mk II line-up, including 1985's second largest grossing tour in the US and an appearance in front of 70,000 rain-soaked fans headlining Knebworth on June 22nd 1985, all to support the Perfect Strangers (album). Playing with a rejuvenated 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 and 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 on the Zeppelinesque title track, Perfect Strangers. Further albums followed, often of varying quality and by the late-1990s, Lord was clearly keen to explore where to take his career next, especially since he was nearing 60.

In 1997, he created perhaps his most personal work to date, Pictured Within, released in 1998 and 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 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. Lord finally retired from Deep Purple in 2002, preceded by an injury that required an operation, perhaps a hint that heavy rock might just be a younger man's game. He said subsequently, 'Leaving Deep Purple was just as traumatic as I'd 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 Argandona 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 has slowly built a small, but distinct position and fan base for himself in Europe, collaborating with former Abba superstar and family friend, Anni-Frid Lyngstad, on the 2004 track, The Sun Will Shine Again (with lyrics by Sam Brown) and performing with her across Europe and subsequently, doing concerts also to premiere the yet to be released Boom of the Tingling Strings orchestral piece.

In 2003, he also returned to his beloved Rn'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 Hootchie Cootchie Men, 2003. He remains one of British rock music's most eclectic and talented instrumentalists. Lord is 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, Jacky (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.

Discography

Solo

  • Gemini Suite (1972)
  • Windows (1974)
  • Sarabande (1976)
  • Before I Forget (1982)
  • Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady (1984)
  • Pictured Within (1998)
  • Live in the Basement, Jon Lord and the Hoochie Coochie Men (2003)
  • Beyond The Notes (2004)

With Whitesnake

Misc

  • Art Gallery (1966, with The Artwoods)
  • The Last Rebel (1971, film score with Tony Ashton)
  • Windows (1974, with Eberhard Schoener)
  • First of the Big Bands(1974, with Tony Ashton)
  • Malice in Wonderland (1977, with PAL)
  • The Country Diary Of An Edwardian Lady (1984, with Alfred Ralston)
  • From Darkness To Light (2000, not released)
  • Calling The Wild (2000, film score, not released)
  • Boom Of The Tingling Strings (2003, not released)
  • Disguises (2004, not released)

Further reading

  • Deep Purple: Charlesworth, Chris (Omnibus Press, 1983)
  • Deep Purple, Heavy Metal Photo Book: Welch, Chris with Hasebe, Koh (Omnibus Press 1984)
  • Deep Purple: Sailor, Michael (Hannibal Verlag, 2005)
  • Smoke on the Water, The Deep Purple Story: Thompson, Dave (ECW Press, 2004)
  • The Complete Deep Purple: Heatley, Michael (Reynolds & Hearn, 2005)

Primary sources

  1. 'Beyond the Notes': Lord, Jon sleeve-notes by subject (Capitol Music, 2004)
  2. 'Pictured Within': Lord, Jon sleeve-notes by subject (Virgin Classics, 1997)
  3. 'Before I Forget': Jon Lord interviews by Mike Beecher and Phil Easton (1982)
  4. 'Sarabande': Notes by Vince Budd, South Uist, research by Simon Robinson, July 1998
  5. 'Burn': 30th Anniversary Edition, notes by Nigel Young, May 2004
  6. 'Made in Japan': sleeve notes to official remastered recording by Simon Robinson (1998)
  7. 'Purple Reign': Interview with Jon Lord by Lee Marlow, 26th July 2000
  8. 'Kindred Sprit' magazine: Interview with Jon Lord, Summer 2000
  9. 'Daily Mail': Weekend Magazine, Interview with Jon Lord 'On the Mauve', 1997
  10. 'Keyboard Review': Interview with Jon Lord by Cliff Douse, Issue 139, July 1997
  11. 'Classic Albums: Machine Head' (DVD): Interviews with Jon Lord, Gillan, Glover, Paice, Blackmore, Eagle Rock Entertainment Limited, 2002
  • 12. 'The Kids Are Alright': Interview with Bill Ashton, MBE, by Vinyl Vulture.
  • 13. 'Jon Lord - With Pictures', 90-minute Australian DVD documentary on Jon Lord with extensive interviews, 2003
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jon_Lord&oldid=105567222"