Jim Gordon - the supernatural gift and tragic fate of “the greatest rock drummer” with Joel Selvin

Jim Gordon played the drums on Wichita Lineman, Good Vibrations, the Byrds’ Mr Tambourine Man and hundreds of other recordings we all own and worked with pretty much everyone including Steely Dan, Tom Waits, Tom Petty, Randy Newman, John Lennon, Frank Zappa and the Everlys. He toured with Delaney & Bonnie and Joe Cocker’s Mad Dogs And Englishmen package and was a member of Derek & the Dominos. He played with a “bounce, a lilt, a boiling undercurrent” that added a whole new melodic dimension and he saw two different worlds from the inside, the studio-based pop factories of the ‘60s singles boom and the big ‘70s tours of the heyday of the rock album. West Coast author and music columnist Joel Selvin considers his supreme talent and ultimately catastrophic story in his new book ‘Drums & Demons: the Tragic Journey of Jim Gordon’ alighting here at various points in detail, among them …

… the intersection between “rock and roll and true crime”.

… the secret of “a compositional drummer”.

… how he started at the top, aged 17, touring with the Everlys and the Rolling Stones.

… how Rita Coolidge was robbed of her royalties, twice.

… his appetite for fame and recognition at a time when “being a rock star was the most elevated position in the world”.  

… why he turned down a Dylan tour.  

… the long, tangled evolution of ‘Layla’ and what Jim added to You’re So Vain that transformed it.

… and why he was sentenced to 16 years (for the murder of his mother) and ended up doing 38.

Order Joel’s book here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Drums-Demons-Tragic-Journey-Gordon/dp/1635768993

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