Jim Gordon: The Drummer Who Killed His Mother
Jim Gordon isn’t a widely known drummer, but his story puts many others to shame. The drummer for Derek and the Dominos (who co-wrote Eric Clapton’s Layla, by the way) killed his mother in 1983 with a hammer and a butcher knife.
Photo by Estate Of Keith Morris/Redferns/Getty Images
Clearly, the man wasn’t well. He was a Grammy Award winner and one of the most requested session drummers of the late ‘60s and ‘70s. (He started out with the Everly brothers and worked with The Beach Boys, Joe Cocker, and Little Richard to name a few.) But he had a darkness that simply took over. He was, after all, diagnosed with schizophrenia.