Jim Gordon, Who May Have Written Most Beautiful Instrumental in Rock History Before Voices In His Head Told Him to Murder His Mother, Has Died at 77

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by Julian Spivey
Jim Gordon has died. He may have written the most beautiful piece of pop music ever. And then the voices in his head told him to murder his mother.

At 17, Gordon got his first professional music gig playing drums for the Everly Brothers in 1963. He passed on a music scholarship to UCLA for this opportunity.

It wasn’t long before he was one of the most sought-after session players in Los Angeles, the protégé of Hal Blaine of the famous “The Wrecking Crew” of session players.

In 1969-1970, Gordon toured as the drummer for Delaney & Bonnie, who at the time had Eric Clapton, already done with The Yardbirds, Cream and Blind Faith, playing guitar for them. Clapton embarked on a solo career in 1970, but he also took Delaney & Bonnie’s entire rhythm section – Gordon, Carl Radle on bass and Bobby Whitlock on keyboards – and formed Derek and the Dominos.  

Derek and the Dominos only recorded one studio album – the 1970 double album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs – but that album contained one of the greatest tracks in rock and pop music history – “Layla.”

“Layla,” released as a single in March of 1971, was mostly written by Clapton (though arguably the two greatest pieces of music on the track were written by others). The song was inspired by a seventh-century love story in Arabia that later formed the basis of the 12th-century Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi’s The Story of Layla and Majnun. In the story, a young man falls hopelessly in love with a beautiful young girl, went crazy and because of this could not marry her. The story reminded Clapton of his secret love for Pattie Boyd, the wife of his friend and Beatles guitarist George Harrison.

Clapton, who penned the lyrics, originally envisioned the song as a ballad – which he would record it as famously for his MTV Unplugged appearance in 1992, which gave the song a second life on radio and in pop culture.

It would become a rocker when Allman Brothers Band guitarist Duane Allman showed up and created the song’s signature guitar riff. Clapton would collaborate with Allman on the rest of the track’s guitar pieces with Allman also contributing on slide guitar.

While in the studio, Clapton would overhear Gordon playing a piano piece he has composed separately. Clapton was greatly impressed by what he heard and talked Gordon into using the piece as part of the song – it became the coda for the song and what I’ve long considered the most beautiful piece of popular music I’ve ever heard. I think director Martin Scorsese might agree – he notably used the coda as the soundtrack to the final scene of his 1990 classic “Goodfellas.”

This is where the story turns dark, the kind of dark not even Scorsese could probably create.

Gordon may not have composed the coda to “Layla,” or at least may have had help.

In a 2011 interview with whereseric.com, Whitlock claimed: “Jim took that piano melody from his ex-girlfriend Rita Coolidge. I know because in the D&B days, I lived in John Garfield’s old house in the Hollywood Hills and there was a guest house with an upright piano in it. Rita and Jim were up there in the guest house and invited me to join in on writing this song with them called ‘Time’ … her sister Priscilla wound up recording it with Booker T. Jones … Jim took the melody from Rita’s song and didn’t give her credit for writing it. Her boyfriend ripped her off.” Graham Nash would substantiate the rumor in his 2014 autobiography Wild Tales and Coolidge would, as well, in her 2016 autobiography Delta Lady: A Memoir. Only Clapton and Gordon would be credited on “Layla.”

The story gets even darker than potentially stealing your life’s greatest work from your girlfriend.

Following the disbanding of Derek and the Dominos after their one album, which despite the excellence of “Layla” was unsuccessful, Gordon played with Steely Dan, Alice Cooper, Frank Zappa, Tom Waits and Tom Petty among others. But, Gordon, who had a history of mental health issues, would see his paranoia and erratic behavior progress as the ‘70s went on and it was complicated by alcohol and drug abuse. He also had a history of abusing his partners, including Coolidge and his future wife Renee Armand. Work began to dry up for Gordon after word got around about his issues.

Gordon had developed schizophrenia, which at the time went undiagnosed, and began hearing voices (including that of his mother). On June 3, 1983, Gordon attacked his 72-year-old mother Osa Marie Gordon, with a hammer before fatally stabbing her with a butcher knife. He would claim a voice told him to kill her. It was only after his arrest for his mom’s murder that he was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

At his trial, the court accepted that Gordon has schizophrenia, but he was not allowed to use an insanity defense because of changes made to California law due to the Insanity Defense Reform Act of 1984, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. On July 10, 1984, Gordon was sentenced to 16 years to life in prison. He was denied parole many times as he never attended a parole hearing.

Publicist Bob Merlis confirmed that Gordon died of natural causes on Monday at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville, Calif.  “after a long incarceration and lifelong battle with mental illness.” Gordon was 77.

I’ve always been haunted by the fact that the man who is at least credited with writing what I consider to be the most beautiful piece of pop music wound up brutally murdering his own mother before finishing out his life in prison. It doesn’t feel like someone capable of that kind of beauty could also be capable of such brutality and darkness.  

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