Sir Lord Baltimore was an American rock band from Brooklyn, New York City, formed in 1968 by lead vocalist and drummer John Garner, guitarist Louis Dambra, and bassist Gary Justin.

Some have cited the 1971 review of their debut record, Kingdom Come, in Creem magazine[4] as containing the first documented use of the term "heavy metal" to refer to a style of music.

[10] On February 19–20, 1971, Sir Lord Baltimore played consecutive nights at New York's Fillmore East as the opening act on a bill that included the J. Geils Band and Black Sabbath, as part of the latter's Paranoid tour.

[4] Issued in 1971, also on Mercury, Sir Lord Baltimore marked a change in direction, with Kingdom Come's frenetic pace giving way to slower tempos more reminiscent of music produced by the band's hard rock peers.

[14] However, the band did start work in the mid-1970s on an unreleased third album, originally scheduled for 1976, and music written for that project was eventually used on Sir Lord Baltimore III Raw.

[16] In 2007, Garner and Swedish guitar player Janne Stark (formerly of Overdrive and Locomotive Breath) recorded a new version of "Woman Tamer" from SLB's second album.

In March 2008, it was announced that Garner and Stark, with a selected bass player, would make an appearance at Sweden Rock Festival in June 2008, but lack of pay and other mitigating circumstances prevented them from performing.

Garner (born John Guarneri on February 2, 1952, in Brooklyn, New York)[17] died of liver failure on December 5, 2015, at the age of 63; effectively ending the band.