“The best drummer in the world”: the strange little-known life of Jim Gordon
The prelude to tragedy is always a strange one when discussing the life and career of Jim Gordon. Before murdering his mother, Gordon occupied the spotlight as any budding drummer would, gaining the kind of high-end praise from his peers that any musician would long to have. Gordon’s convictions would overshadow his entire world, but before his life spiralled into chaos, he was one of the most celebrated drummers in history.
Gordon was a member of Derek and the Dominos, alongside a session musician for Eric Clapton, George Harrison, and Steely Dan, earning a reputation as one of the most sought-after musicians in the business. He also played drums for some of The Beatles’ solo work after they broke up and worked on a handful of sounds and riffs that would become some of the most defining in rock history.
Before he went down a dark path, Gordon was on the lips of most musicians, especially in conversations about intuitive drummers who knew exactly where to apply certain techniques to transform a good song into a great one. “To me, he’s the best drummer in the world. He’s the best,” Toto’s Jeff Porcaro once said, adding, “He was the number one studio drummer in this town for years. The best drummer in the world. The best. Nobody’s drums sounded better. Nobody grooved better.”
While Porcaro’s praise continued, especially regarding Gordon’s timing and technicality, all of this reigned over any perceived darkness, enough for his life to seemingly journey through the “normal” facets of adulthood before his downfall. For instance, a collaboration-turned-romance with singer Renee Armand seemed the kind of spontaneous liaison many musicians embraced at the time, but after getting married in Las Vegas, Armand decided that his flavour of rock ‘n’ roll wasn’t exactly for her.
On one specific occasion, a rendezvous with a handful of names anybody would likely feel inclined to be jealous of—Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Don Henley, and others—suddenly became a nightmare situation when the entire meet-cute immediately revolved around drugs. “It wasn’t a particularly pleasant trip,” Armand later reflected, alluding to a bigger problem that caused Gordon to start missing important studio sessions.
Although he would blame his mishaps on several different things, like oversleeping, Gordon’s undoing seemed to come hard and fast. He likely wasn’t as aware of just how rapidly things were going south and even tried to convince those in the studio that this wasn’t like him at all, but when he kept missing dates and deadlines, something seemed severely amiss. Gordon had been battling mental health challenges early on, but in an era when mental health was far less understood, Gordon’s mess-ups were ruled as merely drug-fuelled escapades, like any other rockstar.
By the late 1970s, Gordon reportedly began experiencing disturbing sequences with voices as a symptom of his burgeoning schizophrenia. He would remain active in the music industry for several years. Still, many claimed that his mental decline started to influence his thinking and behaviour, with his mood and disposition suddenly turning erratic and unpredictable more frequently as time went on. However, some unintentionally minimised this as “the two sides to Jim,” except Armand, who recalled coming home one day to find Gordon talking to somebody in the hallway, saying, “I know what you’ve done.”
This was the prelude to Gordon’s severe unfolding, as he then attempted to strangle Armand, who only got away because he stopped momentarily to pour himself a drink. According to various accounts, she then disappeared, and he went to his mother’s to try to uncover his wife’s whereabouts. That was June 3rd, 1983, and in the crux of his intense psychotic breakdown, Gordon murdered his mother.
Gordon’s career beforehand wasn’t one marked by sinister actions, nor was he associated with darkness beyond the usual foray into the drugs and alcohol lifestyle, like his peers. He also accrued the kind of credentials most merely dream of, working his way to the top on talent alone, despite the hardships that would later define his reputation and energy.
