DRUMS AND DEMONS
Born in New Jersey, his family moved to the San Fernando Valley in California when Jim was little.
Jim was the son of John Shields Gordon, an accountant who was a violent alcoholic, and Osa Marie Beck, a nurse. He had an older brother called John.
Aged just eight, Jim built his first drum kit out of garbage cans.
For his twelfth birthday, he was given a proper set of drums and his parents paid for music lessons. Jim practiced non-stop.
Whilst still at High School, Jim played with the Burbank Symphony Orchestra.
At the same time, he was breaking age restrictions by playing the drums in nightclubs, using a fake ID.
Jim was offered a music scholarship at UCLA (the University of California) but turned it down in order to become a professional drummer.
He joined a band called ‘Frankie Knight and The Jesters’. They played the Hollywood club circuit.
His obvious ability with the drums brought Jim to the attention of the Everly Brothers, who signed him up – his first professional ‘gig’.
“People began paying attention; it was hard not to notice the gangly, tall blond (6 feet 4 inches) with curly locks and a shy smile.”
Very quickly, Jim built up a reputation as one of the best studio drummers in the state of California. He became part of ‘The Wrecking Crew’, a group of Los Angeles session musicians that played on hundreds of hit records.
Jim married dancer Jill Barabe, and they had a daughter called Amy. The marriage ended in divorce after five years.
Jim played on the Beach Boys LP ‘Pet Sounds’ (he is the drummer on ‘God Only Knows’) and on hit singles like ‘Marrakesh Express’ (Crosby, Stills and Nash) and ‘Classical Gas’ (Mason Williams). He also worked with The Byrds, Sonny and Cher, Glen Campbell, Nancy Sinatra and Nilsson – and many others.
Jim was also the drummer on Ike and Tina Turner’s ‘River Deep, Mountain High’.
For some reason, other musicians gave Jim the nickname ‘Skippy’.
Jim’s father had instilled in him a real sense of financial awareness. He was careful with his money and kept notebooks recording every single cent he spent. “I never had millions, but there were times when I had several hundred thousand in the bank.”
He met another studio musician, a pianist called Leon Russell, and the two men became firm friends.
Russell was approached by English musician Joe Cocker, and given one week to form a band to go on tour. Leon immediately signed Jim up. The group were called ‘Mad Dogs and Englishmen’.
After that, Jim worked with singers Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett. They toured with Eric Clapton as their guitarist, with whom Jim got on really well.
By now, Jim was in a relationship with the band’s singer, Rita Coolidge. She remembered Jim’s father sending him a letter suggesting he get psychiatric help.
Rita thought this was strange. She said, “He was an amazing guy, just really charismatic…”
However, it was on tour that the first signs of strange behaviour from Jim began to occur. During rehearsals he would stop playing, single another musician out and say things like, “You’re the devil. You’re messing with my time.”
Entering a hotel in New York one afternoon, he spoke to Rita. “Jim said very quietly so only I could hear, ‘Can I talk to you for a minute?”
Rita thought he was about to propose. “I never felt closer or more in love with him.” They had just got back from shopping together and he had bought her a fur coat.
Instead, he hit her – so hard that she was flung into the wall behind, and knocked unconscious. Jim walked away as if nothing had happened.
Later, Rita said, “There had never been anything in his character to suggest he’d do something like that…But after everything happened, I started to recognise that look in his eye and knew that he was not playing with a full deck.”
Amazingly, the tour continued – with everybody making sure Jim stayed away from Rita. She sang on stage for the last two weeks with a black eye.
As soon as it was over, Rita Coolidge left Jim – and the band. She did not press charges against him, but did get a restraining order taken out.
George Harrison persuaded Delaney and Bonnie (and their band), to come to London to help him record his first solo album since The Beatles split up. It was called ‘All Things Must Pass’ and included the songs ‘My Sweet Lord’ and ‘What is Life?’ Jim played on the album.
Whilst in London, Jim also worked on John Lennon’s ‘Power to the People’ song.
Jim bought a flat in Chelsea and drove around London in a brand-new Ferrari.
Nobody realised that Jim was getting medical treatment from a hospital whenever he returned to California. He had told doctors he was hearing voices telling him to do terrible things. He never told anybody else about this.
Eric Clapton had the idea of starting a supergroup, and whilst in London approached Jim to see if he would be the drummer.
Clapton and Jim were joined by two other Americans, pianist Bobby Whitlock and bassist Carl Radle – also from the Delaney and Bonnie band.
The band were called ‘Derek and the Dominoes’. All other members were more experienced than Jim. He admitted, “I was in absolute awe of these people.”
Eric Clapton later claimed he played the best music of his career with the Dominoes. “I’d never felt so musically free before.”
They were joined by another guitarist, Duane Allman (of the Allman Brothers Band), for their first album.
The stand-out track was to be a Clapton-penned song called ‘Layla’, notable for the dualling guitars.
Whilst they were recording, Clapton heard Jim playing to himself on piano, a melody that he had written. He decided to add it to the album version of ‘Layla’, extending the song by four minutes.
Jim played the piano on the recorded version.
The single of ‘Layla’ (without the addition), was a big hit, but the album was not very successful.
Two years after the release of the album, the longer version of Layla was included on an Eric Clapton compilation and ultimately became better known than the single.
Years later, Jim’s former girlfriend, Rita Coolidge, claimed to have co-written the additional piece, although she was never given any credit for it. Rita said that she had called the piece ‘Time (Don’t Let the World Get in Our Way)’.
Fellow Domino, Bobby Whitlock said that it was definitely Coolidge who had written the music. Her new boyfriend, musician Graham Nash, confirmed this.
Rita approached Clapton’s manager, Robert Stigwood, in order to get accreditation – but her claims were dismissed. Stigwood said to her, “What are you gonna do? You’re a girl. You don’t have the money to fight this. Let it go.”
Shortly afterwards, Duane Allman was killed in a motorcycle accident (Lynyrd Skynyrd wrote their most famous song ‘Freebird’ in tribute to him).
Derek and The Dominoes never made a second album, splitting up acrimoniously, largely due to the extensive use of alcohol and drugs.
Jim was approached to join the band Traffic, allowing their current drummer, Jim Capaldi, to take over lead vocals.
Shortly afterwards, Jim crashed his Ferrari on a wet road and wrote it off. He decided it was time to go back to the USA.
Jim returned to Los Angeles and resumed being a session musician. He worked with many renowned musicians including Barbara Streisand, The Carpenters, Tom Waits, Alice Cooper, John Lee Hooker, Tom Petty, Frank Zappa, Carole King and Jackson Browne, and many other household names.
Jim even did some drumming for Animal in The Muppets.
He was flying between Los Angeles and Las Vegas every day, to perform in the evening slot at Caesar’s Palace.
During the seventies, Jim worked on hits like ‘Midnight at the Oasis’ (Maria Muldaur), ‘Gentle on my Mind’ (Glen Campbell), ‘You’re So Vain’ (Carly Simon), ‘Rikki Don’t Lose That Number’ (Steely Dan) and ‘Diamonds and Rust’ (Joan Baez).
Eventually, things began to unravel for Jim. He claimed the malevolent voices were getting worse and he was unable to sleep or relax. His mother, Osa, was extremely caring and concerned for him.
He said the voices stopped him from eating – and were preventing him from drumming.
Jim remarried. His wife was singer Renee Armand. He played all the instruments on her album ‘The Rain Book’.
However, she came home one day from grocery shopping, and he hit her, breaking her ribs. They were divorced after just six months of marriage.
His next relationship was with Stacey Bailey, the secretary of the soft-rock group Bread.
It seemed to do Jim good, and he became more stable. She was the first person he told about the voices and she supported him to get treatment – until he tried to strangle her one night. It took her an hour to escape.
His drinking and drug taking became more extreme and he started to be unreliable in the studio. Work quickly dried up.
Jim went into a psychiatric clinic for help after claiming his mother had murdered the singer Karen Carpenter.
He received treatment and seemed to be improving – to the extent that when he declared his mother was his best friend, he was pronounced as no longer a danger.
Jim had the opportunity to record with Bob Dylan but turned him down (by swearing at Dylan on the phone).
Jim was then offered work on a Paul Anka tour, but the first night, he froze, couldn’t drum and walked off stage.
Despite all of his problems, Jim never failed to pay the monthly alimony cheque for his daughter, Amy.
By 1983, Jim had made significant progress. He formed a new band, ‘1-5’, and record companies were fighting to sign them.
However, his father died, and soon afterwards his mother, Osa, informed Jim that she was moving to the North-West, to be closer to his brother John and his family.
Jim’s response was so erratic that Osa phoned the police, concerned she might be at risk. The response was to, “Keep the lights on – and good luck!”
Osa tried to get a restraining order against Jim but was informed that as he had never harmed her, this would not be possible.
Two weeks later, Jim attacked Osa, murdering his mother in a gruesome fashion.
When police arrived at Osa’s house, they found Jim weeping over his mother’s body. They thought he was terrified that the killer might attack him next.
Taking Jim away in the police car, he suddenly shouted, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry – but she’s been torturing me for years.” They realised Jim was in fact, the murderer. He claimed out of all the evil voices in his head, his mothers was the most strident.
He was diagnosed with acute schizophrenia.
In his trial, Jim said the voices told him to kill Osa.
He also said that since his mother’s death, the main ‘evil’ voice in his head was his brother John.
Jim received a sentence of sixteen years to life, and was sent to a psychiatric facility in Vacaville, California.
John did not visit him in prison.
One year after his incarceration, Rolling Stone magazine interviewed him. He said that not a single person from the music industry had been to visit him. “When the crime happened, they all just turned their backs on me…I don’t blame ‘em to tell you the truth…I was on a path of self-destruction.”
Rolling Stone labelled him as ‘The Man Rock ‘n’ Roll Forgot’.
In 1992, Eric Clapton recorded an album called ‘Unplugged’ – acoustic versions of his greatest hits, including ‘Layla’. It won Clapton a Grammy.
To Jim’s amazement, he received a formal invitation to the awards ceremony. Of course, he could not attend, but Jim watched it on TV with the other inmates.
As the award was announced, Jim had just gone to the toilet. When he returned, the other prisoners shouted, “You’ve won a Grammy.”
However, in his acceptance speech, Eric Clapton never referred to Jim at all.
He refused to attend any parole meetings, so he never got out of prison. His lawyers tried on ten separate occasions to get him released. However, in 2018, a doctor who examined him, decided Jim was, “Seriously psychologically incapacitated – a real danger when he is not taking his medication.”
Jim received four decades of treatment.
Over time, the voices disappeared, but Jim remained haunted by them.
In recent years, a drum break that Jim made whilst recording a cover of The Shadows hit, ‘Apache’, for the Incredible Bongo Band (1973) has been sampled by many hip-hop artists.
A biography of Jim was written by Joel Selvin, called ‘Drums and Demons’.
Jim was still receiving royalties from his many recordings when he died in prison, of natural causes. Selvin said it was quite possible that Jim was the wealthiest prisoner in California.
The royalties have been transferred to Jim’s daughter, Amy, herself a professional musician.
RIP – Rockstar In Prison
