DLVH84
07-16-2012, 04:09 PM
Jon Lord, the former keyboardist and founding member of Deep Purple and Whitesnake, has died after suffering a pulmonary embolism, while battling pancreatic cancer. He was 71 years old.
He began his music career in his teens. His first musical credit was playing keyboards on The Kinks' 1964 classic "You Really Got Me." In 1968, he formed Deep Purple with Ian Paice, Rod Evans, Ritchie Blackmore, and Nick Simper. Lord would perform on all the releases until their disbanding in 1976. In 1978, he formed Whitesnake with Deep Purple bandmate David Coverdale, and released 1 EP, 2 live albums, and 6 albums, before leaving in 1984, to reform Deep Purple.
Since reforming Deep Purple, Lord has been feature on six albums between 1984 and 1998, before retiring from Deep Purple in 2002. He would be replaced by its current keyboardist Don Airey, leaving Paice as the only original member still in Deep Purple.
Since retiring from Deep Purple, Lord stayed active in music, conducting and composing music, ranging from rock to blues to classical.
Up until his death, Lord formed a supergroup called WhoCares, which included vocalist Ian Gillan (Deep Purple), guitarists Tony Iommi (Black Sabbath) and Mikko Lindström (HIM), bassist Jason Newsted (Metallica), and drummer Nicko McBrain (Iron Maiden). They were in the middle of working on material for an album, before his sudden death. No word on if the project is continuing or has ceased.
He began his music career in his teens. His first musical credit was playing keyboards on The Kinks' 1964 classic "You Really Got Me." In 1968, he formed Deep Purple with Ian Paice, Rod Evans, Ritchie Blackmore, and Nick Simper. Lord would perform on all the releases until their disbanding in 1976. In 1978, he formed Whitesnake with Deep Purple bandmate David Coverdale, and released 1 EP, 2 live albums, and 6 albums, before leaving in 1984, to reform Deep Purple.
Since reforming Deep Purple, Lord has been feature on six albums between 1984 and 1998, before retiring from Deep Purple in 2002. He would be replaced by its current keyboardist Don Airey, leaving Paice as the only original member still in Deep Purple.
Since retiring from Deep Purple, Lord stayed active in music, conducting and composing music, ranging from rock to blues to classical.
Up until his death, Lord formed a supergroup called WhoCares, which included vocalist Ian Gillan (Deep Purple), guitarists Tony Iommi (Black Sabbath) and Mikko Lindström (HIM), bassist Jason Newsted (Metallica), and drummer Nicko McBrain (Iron Maiden). They were in the middle of working on material for an album, before his sudden death. No word on if the project is continuing or has ceased.