Jim Gordon Book Review: From Drummer to Convicted Murderer

The year was 1970 and Jim Gordon was in rock 'n' roll heaven.

The drummer was part of Joe Cocker's infamous Mad Dogs and Englishmen revue, a traveling circus of sex, drugs and legendary music, with band leader and keyboardist and guitarist Leon Russell; saxophonist Bobby Keys, accompanist for the Rolling Stones; and singer Rita Coolidge. The bacchanal troupe wowed audiences with their transcendent performances, leaving fans wanting more.

For Gordon, not yet 25, the moment was particularly sweet. A well-known session musician whose inventive drumming helped propel songs by the Beach Boys, the Byrds, Paul Revere and the Raiders and Glen Campbell to the top of the charts, he enjoyed stepping out of the shadows of the studio onto a bigger stage. Gordon would go on to play drums for Eric Clapton's Derek and the Dominos, adding the song's indelible piano coda to “Layla,” and record with John Lennon and George Harrison. Clapton and Ringo Starr considered him the best drummer in rock.

But storm clouds lurked beneath the sun.

One night after a Mad Dogs and Englishmen show, Gordon was in a hotel room with his girlfriend Coolidge and bassist Carl Radle, his future Derek and Dominos bandmate. After drinking and snorting coke, Gordon asked Coolidge if he could talk to her in the hallway. Given how close they had become, she thought he might propose. Instead, he punched her in the face, knocking her unconscious.

Members of the Mad Dogs and Englishmen attributed Gordon's erratic behavior to the madness surrounding the tour. But there was more. “For Jim, it was a crack in the mask he wore,” writes Joel Selvin, former music critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, in his deeply researched and well-written book, “Drums and Demons: The Tragic Journey of Jim Gordon.” ”. “His Herculean self-control had failed him, letting the dark forces he had kept in check rear their head, dark forces that would have shocked anyone who knew sunny Jim.”

As recounted by Selvin, Gordon heard voices that would only become more hostile and dangerous over time, even causing him intense physical pain if he dared to disobey them. Years later, Gordon would commit one of the most horrific acts in the annals of rock history: on June 3, 1983, he murdered her 71-year-old mother by beating her with a hammer and stabbing her repeatedly in the chest. Gordon said her voice had ordered him to commit the gruesome act.

Gordon died in 2023 at age 77, after nearly four decades in prison, still haunted by voices and still harboring resentment toward his long-dead mother for her “controlling” behavior.

In “Drums and Demons,” Selvin aims to restore Gordon’s humanity and reputation by showing his professional triumphs in the context of his struggles with addiction and mental illness.

Selvin greatly succeeds in adding flesh, blood, and soul to Gordon's story. She does an especially good job of capturing the optimism and creative explosion of the Southern California pop scene in the 1960s and Gordon's role in it. Selvin shows the handsome 6-foot-4 blonde drummer in the studio playing Brian Wilson's masterpiece “Good Vibrations” and leading the beat for a 24-piece orchestra on Mason Williams' 1968 instrumental hit “Classical Gas.”

In one memorable scene, producer Richard Perry chose Gordon to play drums on Carly Simon's “You're So Vain” after two other drummers failed to give him the sound he wanted. “The drums were an extension of her being and she danced on it,” Selvin writes. Gordon “made the song sound like a big, juicy hit record on the first take, and by the end of the night, he left no doubt in the minds of everyone in the room that it was exactly what they had now” .

Selvin vividly describes Gordon's decline in harrowing detail, including his alarming violence toward women, countless psychotic episodes, and banishment from rock royalty due to his increasing unreliability and terrifying behavior. In the months before his mother's murder, for example, Gordon, bloated and dull-eyed, had been forced to play four shows a night for $30 with a faceless group called the Blue Monkeys in a rough Santa Monica bar. . The voices in his head continued to torment him.

The biggest problem with the book is that despite Selvin's laudable efforts to complete Gordon, the drummer simply wasn't that interesting, especially compared to the artists he worked with.

“Jim moved through life like a ghost. He was friendly, but he had no friends,” Selvin writes. He hid from close observation. Her smile helped him; he kept it safe and unchallenged. Nobody really knew him.”

The fact that this is such a solid book reflects Selvin's prodigious journalistic talents. The author of more than 20 works, including “Altamont,” which chronicles the ill-fated 1969 rock festival headlined by the Stones, he is one of the best rock writers around. Still, I'm not convinced that session man Gordon deserves a 250-page biography. John Bonham, the thunderous soul of Led Zeppelin, certainly does. So does Starr, the heartbeat of the Beatles. But Jim Gordon? Maybe a long magazine article.

Ballon, a former Times and Forbes reporter, teaches an advanced writing class at USC. He lives in Fullerton.