| Biography | James Beck Gordon is an American musician and songwriter. Gordon was a popular session drummer in the late 1960s and 1970s and was the drummer in the blues rock supergroup Derek and the Dominos.
Gordon was raised in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles and attended Grant High School. He passed up a music scholarship to UCLA in order to begin his professional career in 1963, at age 17, backing the Everly Brothers. He went on to become one of the most sought-after recording session drummers in Los Angeles. The protégé of studio drummer Hal Blaine, Gordon performed on many notable recordings in the 1960s, including Pet Sounds, by the Beach Boys (1966); Gene Clark with the Gosdin Brothers, by Gene Clark (1967); The Notorious Byrd Brothers, by the Byrds (1968); and the hit "Classical Gas", by Mason Williams (1968).
In 1969 and 1970 Gordon toured as part of the backing band for Delaney & Bonnie, which at the time included Eric Clapton. Clapton subsequently took over the group's rhythm section Gordon (drummer), Carl Radle (bassist), Bobby Whitlock (keyboardist, singer, songwriter) and they formed a new band, later called Derek and the Dominos. The band's first studio work was as the house band for George Harrison's first solo album, the three-disc set All Things Must Pass (1970). Gordon played on Derek and the Dominos' 1970 double album, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs.
In 1970 Gordon was part of Joe Cocker's Mad Dogs & Englishmen tour and played on Dave Mason's album Alone Together. In 1971, he played on Harry Nilsson's album Nilsson Schmilsson, contributing the drum solo to the track "Jump into the Fire". Gordon was the drummer on the Incredible Bongo Band's album Bongo Rock, released in 1972, and his drum break on the LP version of "Apache" has been frequently sampled by rap music artists. In 1972, Gordon was also part of Frank Zappa's 20-piece 'Grand Wazoo' big band and the subsequent 10-piece 'Petit Wazoo' band. Perhaps his best-known recording with Zappa is the title track of the 1974 album Apostrophe , a jam with Zappa and Tony Duran on guitar and Jack Bruce on bass guitar, for which both Bruce and Gordon received a writing credit (Zappa, when introducing Gordon onstage, frequently referred to him as "Skippy", because of his youthful appearance).
Gordon developed schizophrenia and began to hear voices, including those of his mother, which compelled him to starve himself and prevented him from sleeping, relaxing or playing drums. His physicians misdiagnosed the problems and instead treated him for alcohol abuse. While on tour with Joe Cocker in the early 1970s, Gordon reportedly beat and injured his then girlfriend Rita Coolidge in a hotel hallway, thereby ending their relationship.
On June 3, 1983, he attacked his 72-year-old mother, Osa Marie Gordon, with a hammer before fatally stabbing her with a butcher knife; he claimed that a voice told him to kill her. Only after his arrest for murder was Gordon properly diagnosed with schizophrenia. At his trial, the court accepted that he had acute schizophrenia, but he was not allowed to use an insanity defense because of changes to California law due to the Insanity Defense Reform Act, dismissed by Lawrence Z. Freedman as "ineffective".
On July 10, 1984, Gordon was sentenced to 16 years to life in prison. He was first eligible for parole in 1991, but parole has been denied several times. At a 2005 hearing, he claimed his mother was still alive. In 2014, he declined to attend his hearing and was denied parole until at least 2018. A Los Angeles deputy district attorney stated at the hearing that he was still "seriously psychologically incapacitated" and "a danger when he is not taking his medication". In November 2017, Gordon was rediagnosed with schizophrenia. On March 7, 2018, Gordon was denied parole for the tenth time and is tentatively scheduled to become eligible again in March 2021. As of 2018, he is serving his sentence at the California Medical Facility, a medical and psychiatric prison in Vacaville, California. |