LOS ANGELES – Jim Gordon, the famous drummer who supported Eric Clapton and The Beach Boys before being diagnosed with schizophrenia and sent to prison for the murder of his mother, has died. He was 77.
Gordon died Monday at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville, the state’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation confirmed Thursday. It is believed he died of natural causes, but the official cause will be determined by the Solano County coroner.
Gordon is the drummer for the blues-rock supergroup Derek and the Dominos, led by Clapton. He played on their 1970 double album “Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs” and toured with them.
Gordon is credited with contributing the elegiac piano coda for “Layla.” The group’s keyboardist Bobby Whitlock later claimed Gordon took the piano tune from his then-girlfriend, singer Rita Coolidge, and did not recognize her.
Coolidge wrote in her 2016 memoir “Delta Lady” that the song was called “Time” when she and Gordon wrote it. They played it for Clapton when they went to England to record with him.
“I was furious,” Coolidge wrote. “What they obviously did was take the song that Jim and I wrote, remove the lyrics, and put it in at the end of Eric’s song. It’s almost the same arrangement.”
Coolidge said she was comforted when the royalties for Gordon’s song went to his daughter, Amy.
Gordon can be heard on George Harrison’s first post-Beatles album “All Things Must Pass”, The Beach Boys’ “Pet Sounds” album and Steely Dan’s 1974 song “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number.”
He has also worked with Joan Baez, Jackson Browne, The Byrds, Judy Collins, Alice Cooper, Crosby Stills & Nash, Delaney & Bonnie, Neil Diamond, Art Garfunkel, Merle Haggard, Hall & Oates, Carole King, Harry Nilsson, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and Barbra Streisand, among others.
Gordon’s mental health eventually declined.
In 1970, Gordon joined Joe Cocker’s famous “Mad Dogs & Englishmen” tour, with Coolidge, then a backup singer before embarking on a successful solo career.
She wrote in her memoirs that one night in the hotel lobby, Gordon hit her in the eye “so hard that I was lifted off the floor and hit the wall on the other side of the hallway.” She was knocked unconscious for a short time.
With two weeks to go before the tour, Coolidge performed with a black eye. She did not press charges against Gordon but signed the restraining order and their relationship ended.
In June 1983, he attacked his 71-year-old mother, Osa Gordon, with a hammer and then stabbed her to death with a butcher’s knife. He claimed that a voice told him to do it.
It was not until after being arrested for second-degree murder that Gordon was diagnosed with schizophrenia.
Gordon was sentenced to 16 years in prison with the possibility of parole. However, he was denied pardon several times after failing to attend any hearings and remained in prison until his death.
James Beck Gordon was born on July 14, 1945, in the Sherman Oaks area of Los Angeles, he began his professional career at the age of 17, backing The Everly Brothers.
Gordon was a member of The Wrecking Crew, a popular music group based in Los Angeles who played hundreds of hits during the 1960s and 1970s.
He was a student of drum legend Hal Blaine.
“When I didn’t have time, I introduced Jim,” Blaine told Rolling Stone in 1985. “He’s a great drummer. I think he’s one of the great players.”
