Jon Lord

Keyboardist/composer Jon Lord was a founding member of Deep Purple, best known for their thunderously heavy approach on such albums as 1970's Deep Purple in Rock, 1971's Fireball, and 1972's Machine Head. Lord's solo album Gemini Suite, based on a concerto he'd written for the BBC, arrived in 1974, and Sarabande followed in 1975. After Deep Purple's demise he joined singer David Coverdale's Whitesnake. Lord's next solo album, Before I Forget, appeared in 1982. He joined a re-formed Deep Purple in 1984, remaining with the band until 2002. Lord's latter-day classical albums included 1998's Pictured Within, 2004's Beyond the Notes, 2007's Durham Concerto, and 2008's Boom of the Tingling Strings. After battling pancreatic cancer, Lord died of a pulmonary embolism in 2012 at age 71. ~ Jason Ankeny