10 Greatest Keyboardists In Hard Rock

Once hard rock started to reach its apex, there was no real need for the keyboard to hang around all that often. For as much as acts like the Rolling Stones may have sprinkled in a piano line here and there in their arrangements, other acts rising from the underground like Black Sabbath didn't really need a keyboard to blow out your speakers. Just when people thought that the era of the keyboard may have gone by the wayside, Deep Purple rose to prominence with some of the most menacing sounds in hard rock.

While Purple already had an amazing guitarist in tow with Ritchie Blackmore, Jon Lord's work with the Hammond organ is what really gave them their character. Instead of using the traditional speakers designed for organs, Lord's decision to put his organ through a Marshall stack gave it an amazing throaty character, which would often go to battle with Blackmore's guitar whenever they took to the stage.

In fact, some of the most classic Purple moments are so raw and unhinged that they're easy to miss if you're not listening carefully. Hell, even some songs like Space Truckin are dominated by the keyboard at the beginning, where most people would consider a guitar to be. For as much as the organ has a reputation as a church instrument, Jon Lord showed just how much nasty sounds can come out of your average keyboard.