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Monday, July 16, 2012

Deep Purple Elite Keyboardist Jon Lord Has Died

Jon Lord, one of the great keyboard players of the Rock Era for Deep Purple, has died at age 71 after battling pancreatic cancer.  Lord suffered a blockage of the lung artery, according to a statement posted on his website.

Lord was born in Leicester, England on June 9, 1941 and took classical music lessons as a child.  As a key component of Deep Purple, Lord blended classical and heavy metal music using a Hammond C3 organ, distorting the sound, and routing it through amplifiers.  Lord co-wrote Deep Purple's biggest hit, "Smoke on the Water" in 1973, one of the biggest heavy metal successes of all-time.


Deep Purple sold over 100 million records in their career, and rivaled the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin in their heyday.


Lord retired from the group in 2002 and spent his last years working on solo material and collaborating with other musicians.



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