Jon Lord – The Official Website

Ritchie Blackmore explains to NJ.com the origins of his instrumental tribute to Jon – Carry On… Jon:

- We were snowed in, in that blizzard (on Feb. 8). The engineer and myself, the producer, we had nothing to do. I said, ‘I have an instrumental that I’ve vaguely finished. Do you want to try it?’

- I wrote it on the spur of the moment. I had a very melancholy kind of tune. Then I started thinking about Jon. I thought maybe we should do an organ part at the end, as a tip of the hat to Jon. Pat Regan is an accomplished organist. We put the organ sound on, and off he went. I guided him on a few things, like riffs and how Jon played syncopation with his right hand.

- So it was a throwaway idea that turned into something. It was something to Jon, a way of saying thanks for the years. It’s hard to talk about, when someone says, ‘What did you think of Jon?’ I’d rather play a tune. We wouldn’t have put it on if we hadn’t been snowed in. Maybe Jon caused the blizzard.

Carry On… Jon is included on Blackmore’s Night’s new album, Dancer And The Moon

Buy the album from Jon’s webshop.

Read the full interview.

BBC Radio 4 are repeating Rock’n'Roll in Four Movements, the programme first broadcast last August, which featured Jon’s last recorded interview.

Taking a closer look at the musicians that have worked to combine the worlds of rock and classical music, in the programme, Jon talks about his passion for writing classical music, inspired by his early experiment with his Concerto.

Also featured are Rick Wakeman and Keith Emerson who talk about the genre’s excesses, and Roy Wood who talks about the early days of the Electric Light Orchestra.

Listen to BBC Radio 4 Monday June 3 at 4pm UK time – or listen online right now.

When Rock Meets Classics is a highly recommended 48-minute radio retrospective in Jon’s memory.

Opening with a snippet of the piano version of Child in Time, the comprehensive yet succinct overview of Jon’s career features all-new interviews with a list of important players in Jon’s musical life – incl. an interview with himself conducted in 2010 – and is peppered with appropriate and inspired soundbites of Jon’s music.

The not often heard voice of Eberhard Schoener, Jon’s German conducting partner, speaks of the pair’s work on Windows and Sarabande.

Jon’s daughter Sara speaks about his departure from Deep Purple and his years as a composer ‘writing music every day.’

The broadcast also features illustrious interviews with Ian Paice, Paul Mann, Roger Glover, Rick Wakeman, Glenn Hughes and more.

First aired in July 2012, the piece is hosted by Eli Lapid of The Voice of Israel who has kindly made it available exclusively for JonLord.org