Jim Gordon, a prime drummer for Eric Clapton, George Harrison and numerous others who was recognized with schizophrenia after murdering his mom in 1983, has died.
In accordance with the announcement, he died Monday from pure causes at California Medical Facility in Vacavillle, Calif., after a protracted incarceration and lifelong battle with psychological sickness. He was 77.
Gordon was a member of Clapton’s group Derek and the Dominos and is the credited cowriter of the traditional tune “Layla,” and performed on actually a whole bunch of songs as a part of the elite crew of session musicians often known as the Wrecking Crew. He was additionally a member of Joe Cocker’s Mad Canines and Englishmen group and Delaney and Bonnie and Pals, and was one of many essential drummers on George Harrison’s epochal 1970 album “All Issues Should Move.” His work on the Unimaginable Bongo Band’s 1972 tune “Apache” grew to become one of the crucial sampled drum breaks in hip-hop historical past.
Any informal fan of Sixties and ’70s rock has heard his enjoying on songs by the Seaside Boys, Steely Dan, Carly Simon, Gordon Lightfoot, Harry Nilsson, Sonny and Cher, Nancy Sinatra, Glen Campbell, and even the Byrds — that whipcrack drum fill on the finish of their model of their 1967 cowl of Carole King and Gerry Goffin’s “Goin’ Again” was performed by him. He was indisputably one of many biggest rock drummers of his period, however his lengthy untreated psychological sickness resulted within the homicide of his mom.
Born in 1945, he was raised in California’s San Fernando Valley and commenced his skilled profession the day after he graduated highschool in 1963, enjoying a session with the Everly Brothers. He reduce his tooth as a session musician on hits by most of the above artists, sometimes touring with the likes of Delaney and Bonnie, Cocker and Derek and the Dominos.
Nonetheless, he had a historical past of psychological sickness and his conduct grew to become unstable within the late Sixties. Whereas on tour with Cocker in 1970, he struck singer Rita Coolidge, his girlfriend on the time. Quoted in Bill Janovitz’s Leon Russell biography, Coolidge says, “Jim stated very quietly, so solely I may hear, ‘Can I speak to you for only a minute?’ He meant he wished to speak alone. So we walked out of the room collectively … After which he hit me so exhausting that I used to be lifted off the ground and slammed in opposition to the wall on the opposite facet of the hallway… It got here from nowhere.”
Nonetheless, the tour and Gordon’s busy profession continued, peaking with Derek and the Dominos — Gordon is credited with the piano-driven, instrumental second half of the rock traditional “Layla” (though Coolidge has stated the composition was really hers). His profession continued by the ‘70s through work with Alice Cooper, Steely Dan, Dave Mason, Helen Reddy, Johnny Rivers and plenty of others.
Nonetheless, in June of 1983 he bludgeoned after which stabbed his 72-year-old mom to loss of life, claiming that voices instructed him to take action. He was then formally recognized with schizophrenia and sentenced to 16 years to life in jail; he was up for parole a number of occasions however denied.
