Jim Gordon, the prolific session drummer and convicted murderer who played with some of rock’s most famous artists – including the Beach Boys, George Harrison and Eric Clapton, whose classic “Layla” he co-wrote – before being imprisoned for his mother’s murder, died Monday at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville. He turned 77.
His death was confirmed by a publicist, Bob Merlis, who said Gordon died of natural causes “after a long incarceration and a lifelong battle with mental illness”.
Originally from Los Angeles, Gordon was part of the so-called wrecking crew of studio musicians who shaped the sound of countless pop hits in the 1960s and 1970s; he later starred in Clapton’s Derek and the Dominos and as part of Joe Cocker’s Mad Dogs and Englishmen Band. In 1983, Gordon killed his mother, a crime he described to The Washington Post as “like a dream”; He was later diagnosed with schizophrenia.
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Source: LA Times