Jon Lord [1982] - Before I Forget (lossless)

Goran Nilsson wrote:
Before I Forget was Jon Lord’s fourth solo album and the only one he did as a member of Whitesnake. Jon was a member of Whitesnake from August 1978 to April 1984, a period of Jon’s life where I think it is fair to say that he didn’t make himself heard very much.


With two guitarists as well as a singer who probably didn’t want the instrumental parts of the songs make anybody doubt who the star in the band was (after all, the most merited member was Jon Lord), making oneself heard might not have been the easiest task. The name of the record, Before I Forget, hints at the fact that most of the songs are built around different memories of Jon’s. My thought when I first saw the title, however, was that this was Jon taking the chance to put out a solo record and to make him heard again before he forgot how to do it. The cover of the record has the head of an elephant with a knot on its trunk, a creature that isn’t very likely to forget, unless of course it dies from suffocation.

The music is very different from Jon’s previous solo albums in two respects. First of all, it does not have an orchestra and the instrumentation on the album is that of a rock band. Also, it is not in the form of a concerto or suite but consists of separate songs with no connection apart from the memory theme. The songs are divided on two sides, as they usually where in the good old vinyl days, with the first side consisting of four more uptempo songs and the second of four ballads. Starting with the first side I will make some comments about each song.

The record starts with a song called Chance on a Feeling in a sort of AOR style. It starts very sudden. In fact, when this record first came out I recorded it from a friend (please don’t tell anyone!) and I thought that I had missed the beginning and decided to record it again! The line up for the song is basically Whitesnake without DC and with Bernie Marsden handling the vocals. It has a nice groove, powerful drumming by little Ian and some funky synth bass. The song is ok, but perhaps not overly exciting.

The second song Tender Babes is when things are starting to happen. It begins with a very nice soft renaissance like intro played on the Mini-Moog. And when you are really starting to enjoy these subtle sounds an earthquake in the form of Cozy Powell comes thundering in. Jon has speculated that Cozy, being aware that Simon Phillips also was going to play on the record, set out to prove who was the best drummer of the two. Together with Billy Cobham, Phillips is my favourite drummer but I have to say that this game goes to Cozy! The best way to describe the rest of the song is probably the way David Palmer described one of the songs of Jethro Tull; "Imagine if King Henry VIII had had a rock & roll band – it would have sounded something like this"! Accompanied by Cozy and Neil Murray, Jon plays some nice harpsichord on the Polymoog and lets loose a bit on the Hammond. This is a very good song, apparently based on a traditional song with the same name by Thomas Tallis.

Hollywood Rock & Roll is in the same "California music"-style as Chance on a Feeling. Jon is in Bad Company on the song, except for Tony Ashton who is handling the vocals in his typical talking/singing fashion. He also gets some help by backing vocalists Sam (daughter) & Vicki (mother) Brown, who are responsible for most of the actual singing on the track and their effort definitely improves the song. Just like Chance on a Feeling, this song is as good as most songs on the Whitesnake album that came out later the same year (Saints and Sinners), but it is not of the standard that you might expect on a Jon Lord album. The ending is cool though….

Track Listing :
1 Chance On A Feeling 4:03
2 Tender Babes 4:00
3 Hollywood Rock and Roll 4:09
4 Bach On To This 7:59
5 Before I Forget 5:02
6 Say It's All Right 4:47
7 Burntwood 4:02
8 Where Are You? 5:01
9 Going Home 3:59
10 Pavane 3:51
11 Lady 5:28
12 For A Friend 6:25
13 Interview 14:17

enjoy the music


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