Episode 32: Jim Gordon part 1

Jim Gordon was a successful studio drummer who worked with all the big names in the industry. He played drums with Eric Clapton and Duane Allman on the masterpiece album Layla and Other Love Songs by Derek and The Dominoes. But a career was interrupted by mental illness and eventually murder. This is a multipart series about fame and tragedy. Listen to hear more of this wild ride of an episode on Jay’s Rock and Roll Stories. 

Contact the show: jaysrockandrollstories@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Hello, rock and roll. Oh yeah, welcome back. Welcome back to Jay's Rock and Roll Stories. I'm your host Jay. Welcome back, everybody. Um, last week we had uh something a little different, right? We did some death metal, wasn't that fun? And uh before that we were talking about Carlos Santana, and uh I titled that episode uh To Get to the Top of the Mountain. And I think this uh the episode that we're doing today on a drummer named Jim Gordon, it's sort of the opposite, sort of having it all and just falling off that mountain. Uh Jim Gordon was um a drummer who who really played with everyone. Um I mean I don't need to tell you everything, we're gonna we're gonna hear it throughout this story. Let's just little bit a little bit of everything, you know, from from Everly Brothers to Um Glenn Campbell to the Beach Boys to Eric Clapton to Um You know Crosby Sills, National Young. He he he he did it all. And uh there's a moment in his life uh where something very, very, very bad happened, and that was his falling off the mountain. And I'm I don't want to tell you yet, because I'd rather just tell you the story of Jim Gordon. Let's get into it. Um all my uh meat and potatoes from this story are are from a book that came out this year by Joel Selvin, the same guy who um wrote the Altamont book that I read for that episode. The the book is called Jim Gordon Drums and Demons: The Tragic Journey of Jim Gordon. Um the book starts out talking about his um talking about the sort of the end of his career where he's just trying to keep things sane. Um he's playing with a band that does covers in Santa Monica called uh The Blue Monkeys. And he plays at little dive bars right on the beach, and uh, you know, the clientele or just beach bums and locals and stuff, you know. Uh Jim has uh schizophrenia. He's he's he's uh he's schizophrenic and he suffers from auditory hallucinations. Uh really the only thing that's keeping him sane is just playing drums. Um he has a hard time when he's alone. He he lives in his little apartment by himself, and um he just he suffers, right? And people were would talk about how thing it it would just kinda happen, like the a fear in him would come in, like they would be at a restaurant or so something, and you know, um Jim Gordon would be about to take a bite out of his, you know, steak and then just freeze and stand up and say, I have to go and and run out. Um so let's uh let's talk about from the beginning. And when Jim was a little boy, uh he had an alcoholic father, um, Jack Gordon. And Jack Gordon drank a lot, Jack Gordon was never really around much, and um actually Jack Gordon actually was a soldier in World War II, but not because he uh, you know, had a a hatred for the Nazis that he wanted to fight for his country, it's that um he got in trouble with some embezzlement, and that the the judge said, Well, what what do you want to do? Uh you can get locked up, or we we need we need some boys over there. He said, Alright, I'll go over there. So, um, as I said, his dad is a seasoned drinker, he's uh already kind of um leaving a lot of wreckage behind. He has two failed marriages, and uh he knocks up uh what is uh Jim Gordon's mom, Osa, and he owes money to um he owes alimony to uh these other mothers, which he he never pays a dime of it. And Osa, Jim's mother feels bad that he she would write checks and send them to these poor ladies. Anyway, I'm gonna move away from uh from dad, from dad Gordon. So Jim is a chubby little kid who um uh comfort eats. And uh one time he knocks over a wastebasket and sets it up with a bunch of pans and stuff and creates a little uh drum set while he's snacking. And it just kind of uh grows from there. Um he drums in school, he does he does well in school. Uh he's like the uh school president in in junior high school. He in high school he um he starts a band called Frankie Knight and the Jesters. Him and his um him and his friend uh Mike Post on keyboards in Frankie Knight and the Jesters. They're but they're uh they're they're like 16, 70 years old, so they they gotta get like fake IDs and they get fake IDs and they're playing um they're playing at a place on Broadway in San Francisco called the Condor. They have a residency for two weeks, so they're like it's like a like a real gig. The book also talks about how um this little band of the Frankie Knight and the Jesters, they they were the backup band for uh Johnny Cash uh when he played at San Quentin on New Year's Eve. Um so at this point, Jim Gordon and his buddy uh Mike Post uh they get really they they're increasing their musical knowledge, they're taking lots of gigs, they're doing weddings, they're doing parties, um, they're cut becoming like seasoned musicians here, and fun a funny funny story how uh Jim Gordon met Mike Post. Jim Gordon was at a miniature golf course, and he was smashing something with his um with his golf club, and Mike Post was working there, and he confronted Jim, grabbed him by like the by the lapels of his shirt, like shook him and you know, roughed him up a little bit, like, hey, don't do that shit here. Uh later they kind of met up and they just started playing music together. Uh Jim has a girlfriend of all names. Her name is Jill. It's Jim and Jill. They go on dates, they go on double dates with Mike Post and his girlfriend. Uh the the these this little group with Mike and Jill and Jim, they they have this sort of a conservative upbringing, and and they swear, they promise to each other, they pledge to each other that they will never ever do drugs. Good luck with that, kids. So there are voices. Jim is hearing voices, and um uh Jill re uh is this has this recollection one time of you know him waiting for her for the date in the living room of her house, and she coming into the living room, like, okay, like I'm ready to go now, but she was hearing him like having a conversation with himself, whisp whispering to himself, and like but it was kind of drowned out by by music, so he she just kind of forgot about it. Um the Everly brothers come to town, uh the Everly brothers, you know, Phil and Don Everly with um with hits, you know, bye-bye love, Wake Up Little Susie, Kathy's Clown. They play uh with Frankie and the Jesters. And they open for him. They uh Frankie and Jesters opened for the Everly Brothers. And um after the gig, this is '61, '62. And after the gig is up, is over, um, they approach Jim and they say, Hey, we're looking for a drummer. Jim Gordon becomes the uh drummer for the Everly Brothers. 1962, uh, the Everly Brothers do a tour of England and Germany. Uh Everly Brothers, um, you know, they were very famous in the late 50s. 1957, um, Bye Bye Love, Wake Up Little Susie, Um, All I Have to Do Is Dream. Those were big hits in 57. Kathy's Clown was a big hit in 1960. Uh When Will I Be Loved was a big hit in 1960. These songs were incredibly popular. They uh they influenced a whole generation of musicians. Uh, the vocal harmon harmonizing that they did was was just fantastic music, inspired everybody. But this is now 1962, and it's England, it's Swinging London uh 62. The Beatles have their second uh number one hit with um She Loves You. Uh so on this tour, there Bo Diddley joins them, Little Richard joins them, and guess who's opening for all of the Rolling Stones? So at these concerts, uh the Rolling Stones are taking in all all the audience. Like there's all these teenage girls screaming and all that kind of thing. And the other Everly Brothers with their like you know, tuxedos and and buzz cuts, um, they look obsolete. They look they look even like irrelevant. And it's kind of sad because uh the stones are getting mobbed by all these fans while the teeny bob, you know, but with the teeny boppers and everything, and um and the Everly brothers are just getting paper cups thrown at them. It's it's kind of depressing, right? Um Jim just plays drums. He's a he's a great drummer. This is his gig. He's got his little shark shark skin suit on, and uh he is uh he is just doing his thing, right? It's funny because um Paul McCartney uh saw one of these one of these shows at the with the Rolling Stones, Bo Diddley, Everly Brothers, and he um comes up to Jim Gordon and says, like Paul Paul McCartney says, Well, you're you're a great drummer. And it's interesting because Paul McCartney is the only Beatle that Jim will not work, well, didn't work with. Like he he he plays drums on uh you know George, Ringo's and John's solo stuff, but nothing with Paul. Anyway, uh Paul, yeah, Paul tells Jim you're a great drummer. Jim is still only 17, 18 years old. And they do a Greyhound bus tour. They're back in the States. Everly brothers do a Greyhound bus tour of the Midwest, and uh Jim turns 18, and uh Phil and Don, they're they're not like big drinkers or parties, but every once in a while they will uh like have a beer. Like they'll pull the bus over, everyone gets out, let's let's have a cold beer. And um there's one time when Phil and Don wanted to play a trick on on Jim, and when they stopped the they got off the bus and they they they they they saw a police officer and chatted with the police officer about playing it playing a joke on the guy, Jim. So when everyone takes a sip of beer, Jim takes his sip of beer, the cop draws his pistol and points it at Jim and says, Hey buddy, you're gonna you're gonna jail for that. You know, underage drinking, whatever, and and Jim looks so terrified, so petrified, like I'm going to jail, and and they all start laughing, and the and the the cop hugs Jim and they think it's really funny. Oh, don't worry, you're not going to jail, drink your beer. That's kind of a fucked up joke, right? He looked terrified. Alright, 1964, 1965, and let's see, Jim does studio work with other bands. Um he joins the National Guard to play with the National Guard band. Uh he's flown over to Vietnam to do a USO uh concert for the for the soldiers over there. Um 1965, the Everly Brothers do another tour of England on their single. They have a hit. It's called the The Price of Love, and it shoots up to number two in England. But it fails to chart at all in the United States, but it's pretty popular over there. The Everly Brothers attempt to make an album with a band uh consisting of Jim on drums, Glenn Campbell on guitar, Larry Netchell on bass. That would be the guy from the band Bread. Um Billy Preston, from uh who played it with the Beatles at one point, um, on Oregon. And they do an album. It it's uh the Everly Brothers are they're kind of like, well, if we can't beat them, join them. So they kind of turn up their guitars and try to sound like what everyone's doing, but it it fails. Like no one no one wants to listen to the Everly Brothers trying to sound like the Beatles. Uh Jim plays another session with uh Sonny and Cher, and um that's their big hit, I got you, babe. Uh Jim is now 20 years old. He uh gets married to Jill, and they um they do lots of fun stuff together. They're happy, they're they're a happy couple. Um 1965 Brian Epstein puts on this uh package, uh concert package called um Star Scene 65 with Everly Brothers, Scylla Black, and Billy J. Kramer and the the Dakotas, and the Everly Brothers are paid uh 7,000 pounds a week. They're kicking ass. So Jim is starting to make some money. He's um 1966. Jim Gordon is uh he's being seen, like everyone's taking note. Who is this? Who is this Jim guy? Um Everly Brothers do a session with Jack Nietzsche, who works under Phil Spector, and this is all happening in Los Angeles, so um a lot is going on in uh Los Angeles, and Jim is working with another uh studio drummer named Hal Blaine. Hal Blaine is getting so much work that he has to give some of these jobs to Jim. So Jim is is the these guys are busy. It's it's uh he gets introduced to Brian Wilson and he becomes friends with Brian Wilson from The Beach Boys, and Jim Gordon plays drums on um God Only Knows and uh other songs that would go go on to be on Pet Sounds and uh Smile. Uh Jack Nietzsche and Phil Spector also do um I can Tina Turner's song Um River Deep Mountain High, and um Jim Gordon plays drums on that in the control room watching that song happening is um Brian Jones and Mick Jagger invited as guests. So um at the moment, like Los Angeles is is changing. It's it's really becoming like the the booming pop industry of the world right now. There's uh all kinds of you know, the you at one point in time, surf rock was really, really, really like the the biggest thing. Not for a very long time, but there was a point where surf rock, um hot rock, hot rod rock, you know, because it's like the it's like the equivalent, the the music is the same, but it's about like you know, hot rods instead of instead of surfboards. Um the all the folk rock that's happening right now, uh the birds, mamas and papas, uh the turtles, and and Jim is doing session work for all these bands. He's making a shitload of money. Jim is making more money than both of his parents combined, and his dad is an accountant and his mom is a nurse, so he's doing really well for himself. He does the session work for the music for the TV hit series The Monkeys. Um kind of funny because the fans of the show finally find out that the monkeys don't even play their own instruments. I think like one monkey does, the rest is all studio stuff. Uh another big hit that Jim was a part of with uh Sunny and Cher when they did the song The Beat Goes On. Jill and Jim they buy a house in the Hollywood Hills, they buy a nice Cadillac, they're happy. Jim does work with uh Harper's Bazaar, the the Bo Brommels. He makes a lot of money, and he ends up losing some money because he made a big investment in some Canadian amusement park, which was gonna feature the biggest swimming pool in the world, and that goes south, and he he loses a lot of money on that. Um things kind of take a turn. He's uh Jill is Jill likes to do stuff, she likes to have company, she likes to go out. Jim is a loner, and he's he's not he's not really enjoying being married. He he he thinks he's too young to be married, but he just continues uh doing jobs. He plays on Neil Young's first solo album. Um Glenn Campbell, uh Nilsen's hit, everybody everybody's talking that one. Randy Newman. Uh but Jim is is is is still conflicted. He's um he's interested in and uh and uh moving moving out, and and he does. He he gets a little apartment and he goes and stays with by himself, but then every couple days he'll get lonely and then come back and stay with um with Jill. Um they both go together, uh Jim and Jill. Jill is pregnant and they go to Brian Wilson's house. Brian Wilson's wife is pregnant, and Jim and uh Brian work on music together. Jim does the song, sorry, Jim does the drums on the uh Kenny Rogers and the new edition song Just Dropped In to see what my condition my condition was in. Um another uh assignment that he does is the uh song, a famous song that came from this guy named Mason Williams. And Mason Williams was the chief writer for the Smothers Brothers show, and they're working on a song called Classical Ghast, which is it featured like a 24-piece orchestra. Uh uh, what's his name? Tommy Smothers Tommy Smothers comes down to the studio to check out what they're doing and gets all pissed off. Like he says something like, That's the most over like uh that's the most over-arranged piece of shit I've ever heard, and but they they just throw him out of the studio because they're they're kind of like uh proud of this piece. I've I'm sure you've heard this song, Classical Gas, Mason Williams. It it it wins a Grammy, and it's kind of a big deal for all these session guys. It's like fuck yeah, we are kicking ass. Um Jill and Jim's baby is born, little little baby girl named Amy. And so Jim, um he's pretty much numb towards Jill, but he feels like it's his his duty and he loves being a father to take care of little Amy. So he's at home and he's he's he's being a father, but there's really not a lot to do to save anything between uh Jim and Jill. Um it's this part of the book is just him, like he just Jesus. The guy's busy, the guy's making uh a lot of money, and he's just he's on it's like he's on every single freaking song. Uh he he does um Judy Collins's uh solo album where uh Steven Stills plays guitar, and Judy Collins and Steven Stills are they fall in love at first sight when they're there, and uh he plays uh drums on um that radio instrumental, another radio instrumental hit called Grazing in the Grass. Uh Graze in the Grass and Classical Gas, the two probably one of the two most biggest uh instrumental hits ever on radio. Uh Jim is done though. He does not want to be married. He's sick of uh he's sick of being with Jill and he gets a job offer. This job offer sounds really freaking lame, but he takes it anyway. It's Andy Williams offers Jim a job to be a bandstand uh drummer at his like um um June uh residency at the Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. How schlocky can you get? But he says, yeah, I'll take it. And he packs up all his shit and he drives out to Las Vegas. And yeah, and in that's that's where we're gonna stop. We're gonna stop there because uh that's it's like everything is going fucking beautifully. Uh, but yeah, shit always hits the fan, right? So we're gonna stop there. Jim is gonna be happily playing uh drums at uh Caesar's Palace with Andy Williams, the Andy Williams band. That's 19. It's 1969. It's it's right after they win the uh Grammy Award for Classical Gas. Alright, 1969, that's where we're gonna end. Alright, so tune in next time. You gotta stick around, because uh shit's gonna get bad. Um man, top top, top of the mountain, man. Top of the mountain with Andy Williams at Caesar's Palace. You can't get to the right? Maybe not. Anyway, he's at the top of the freaking mountain. Um come back. I we got we got a lot more to go. So stick around. And uh we will continue with Jim Gordon. So thank you for sticking with this one. Uh thank you for emails at uh Jay's welcome all stories at Puton. And I will see you next time. See ya.