“We’d arranged to do an album of new material together. He called me… ‘I’ve got cancer; do you mind if we put things on hold?’ Sadly it never happened”: Rick Wakeman’s tribute to Jon Lord

Deep Purple icon, who inspired Yes counterpart to remake Journey To The Centre Of The Earth, had a wicked senseDeep Purple icon, who inspired Yes counterpart to remake Journey To The Centre Of The Earth, had a wicked sense of humour and was a true progger at heart

In 2018 Prog presented the 50 greatest keyboardists in the genre’s history, planting Jon Lord at No. 10. Admitting he was “perhaps the odd man out” since “Deep Purple were unequivocally heavy rock,” we argued:

“Lord’s early solo albums like Gemini Suite and Sarabande showed progressive inclinations. Equally he was the man behind Concerto For Group And Orchestra, which is pretty darn prog too.”

We placed Rick Wakeman at No. 2 – just behind Keith Emerson – saying: “The capes, the ambitious live shows on ice at remarkable settings like Hampton Court… doesn’t do proper justice to a man who was never afraid of taking huge risks,” and adding: “Wakeman’s time with Yes helped define prog as we know it.”

In the same feature Wakeman paid tribute to his great friend Lord, who died on July 16, 2012, expressing regret at never getting time to make the album they’d begun planning together.

“Jon Lord is one of the greatest keyboard players there has ever been. He’s not really considered a prog rock musician, but he did things that nobody else did. When you look at early Deep Purple especially, there was a lot of prog in there – they were breaking rules. Jon did things that you ‘shouldn’t’ do on in the context of a rock band. If that’s not progressive, I don’t know what is.

I bought Shades Of Deep Purple, the very first album by the original Deep Purple line-up, back when it came out. What I really loved about that album was that they did a version of The Beatles’ Help! on there, where Jon did amazing things on the Hammond and Leslie. I thought, ‘I like this guy,’ so I always kept an eye on what he was doing.

Like Keith Emerson, Jon had such had such an identifiable sound – one that nobody else could play. He worked hard on his Hammond to get new noises out of it. And the only way to do that was to continually experiment.

He could have been whatever he wanted to be. He loved playing in a rock band, and he had a phenomenal feel for solos – listen to a song like Speed King. But he also had a classical edge to him. Ian Paice, the drummer from Deep Purple, once told me that no one else in the band knew what was going on with the Concerto For Group And Orchestra thing they did, because it was all in Jon’s head.