Deep Purple’s Jon Lord passed out of the Here-Now to join friends, family, and fans in the Here-Before, but his music with the premiere heavy metal band in history shall survive in the Here-Beyond for as long as young boys sing the four note motif of SMOKE ON THE WATER.
The classically trained pianist was Hammond organ player was the first recruit into the supergroup along with guitarist Ritchie Blackmore to form the backbone of band. Nick Simper on bass, Rod Evans as lead singer, and Ian Paice filled out the line-up and their 1868 cover of HUSH went to # 4 in the USA, despite poor promotion from their record company on the strength of Lord’s Hammond B-3 organ routed through a Marshall Amp.
“Lovely a sound as it was, it wasn’t quite giving me what I wanted. I could hear another sound in my head – something harder, something more throaty. You tap straight in and put it through a straight speaker and you get a beast.”
His song SMOKE ON THE WATER was inspired by a fire during a recording of a Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention gig at the Montreaux casino and the LP MACHINE HEAD reached #7 in the States.
For a long time Deep Purple held the record the “globe’s loudest band” when in a concert at the London Rainbow Theatre their sound reached 117 dB. Three members of the audience were knocked out by the dB overload. See Guinness World Records
Come on everybody, you know the words.
“Smoke on the water. Fire in the sky.”
Jon Lord RIP