Jon Lord RIP

[Frank]

I have to say that I generally regard keyboards as something to be avoided, or at best tolerated, in rock music!

I was thinking about Jon Lord's style of playing and calling it just "rock" falls a long way short of describing it. The way he played with harmony and rhythm and bounced ideas off Blackmore and Paice made Deep Purple's live recordings more like improvised jazz that you could bang your head to, with a hint of Bach thrown in for good measure.

[lulusg]

A sad day... Love his playing on that Hammond organ .. A great .. Great musician ..

[Twinfan]

A great, great player.  Sad news.

[TheyCallMeVolume]

Truly a big loss not just for the rock world, but I think the music world in general. I always felt like John wasn't given enough credit for what he did for the band, because his organ and Blackmore's guitar really meshed together, and Blackmore seemed to always be given the majority of the credit. Lord was very well respected in the keyboard area, obviously, but I feel like he deserved much more credit from the other areas. IMO, Blackmore surely would not be thought of as the guitarist he is today without Jon. RIP

[Tellboy]

Very sad - I never considered myself a keyboard fan and remember going to a Deep Purple gig purely to see Ritchie Blackmore. I absolutely loved Jon L's playing - a great musician (and not quite as tempermental as RB!).
My other favourite keyboard player was Nicky Hopkins who played on so many great records but never got the recognition he deserved.

[gwEm]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mW9b_KRedQ

interesting clip here on his sound