Joel Selvin’s Blockbuster Jim Gordon Biography, ‘Drums & Demons,’ Set For February
He might have been the greatest rock drummer of them all. But now his name is hushed over, hardly mentioned, a mere footnote to rock history, and the book on his tumultuous life and horror ending had never been written. Leave it to Joel Selvin—who wrote the definitive Altamont book—to tackle this subject. Diversion Books will publish Selvin’s Drums & Demons: The Tragic Journey of Jim Gordon on February 27. It’s his masterpiece.
Jim Gordon was born in Elizabeth, Union County. As a teen, he drummed for the Everly Brothers. As a session cat, he was the most in-demand of all. It was thought the mere presence of his drums could catapult a song into a hit. From “Good Vibrations,” “You’re So Vain,” “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number” and “Marrakesh Express” to “There’s A Kind Of A Hush,” “Sundown,” “Coconut,” “Midnight At The Oasis,” “Diamonds And Rust,” “I Am Woman,” “Wichita Lineman” and “Gentle On My Mind,” that’s him on drums.
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He played drums on the greatest tour in rock’n’roll history: “Mad Dogs & Englishmen,” the band Leon Russell put together for Joe Cocker. He was the drummer in Derek & The Dominos. He drummed for Ike & Tina Turner, John Lennon, George Harrison, Sonny & Cher, Carly Simon, Traffic, Tom Petty, The Monkees, Beach Boys, Buffalo Springfield, Jackson Browne, The Carpenters, The Byrds, Nilsson, Joan Baez, Merle Haggard, Dave Mason and Frank Zappa.
But he heard voices in his head telling him to do unspeakable acts. Self-medicating with alcohol, cocaine and heroin, he still descended into schizophrenic madness, his only salvation the drums. Even as he succumbed to the voices, Streisand and Dylan tried to get him to drum. But the voices ultimately took over, horribly loud voices which crowded out his sanity. In 1983, the voices told him to murder his mother, which he did, and ended up the rest of his life in prison, his obvious insanity plea denied. He spent the next 40 years rotting in prison, watching on TV the night Clapton won all those Grammys for the song he co-wrote, “Layla.” He died in prison earlier this year at 77, a life ripped away from him by those voices.
ORDER / READ: “Drums & Demons” (via Diversion Books)