Mum-killing rock drummer Jim Gordon dead at 77

Jim Gordon died on Monday of pure causes on the California Medical Facility in Vacaville, whereas serving his jail sentence.

The drummer, who carried out with the likes of Eric Clapton and George Harrison, had a lifelong battle with psychological sickness, The Sun studies.

He is credited as a co-writer for Clapton’s 1970 hit Layla and was one of many fundamental drummers for Harrison’s album All Things Must Pass – his first solo work after the break-up of the Beatles.

Gordon additionally carried out in songs by the Beach Boys, Steely Dan, Carly Simon, Sonny and Cher, Nancy Sinatra, and the Byrds, amongst others.

However, his stellar profession got here to a screeching halt in June 1983 after Gordon brutally bludgeoned and stabbed his 72-year-old mom to loss of life.

Following the homicide, he was recognized with schizophrenia earlier than he was sentenced to 16 years to life for the homicide in 1984.

Despite being up for parole a number of instances, Gordon was all the time denied, remaining incarcerated till his loss of life.

Before his prognosis, Gordon has an extended historical past of psychological sickness and had at one level assaulted his then-girlfriend Rita Coolidge in 1970.

“Jim said very quietly, so only I could hear, ‘Can I talk to you for just a minute?’ He meant he wanted to talk alone. So we walked out of the room together,” wrote Bill Janovitz in a biography of the late musician, Leon Russell.

“And then he hit me so hard that I was lifted off the floor and slammed against the wall on the other side of the hallway … It came from nowhere.”

Gordon exhibited few indicators of erratic behaviour to his fellow musicians, with Coolidge describing him as “an amazing guy, just really so charismatic”.

“[But] after everything happened, I started to recognise that look in his eye and knew that he was not playing with a full deck.”

This story initially appeared on The Sun and is republished right here with permission