Ja naslov je dvoumen prav tak kot Jim.
Mnogi se zdaj sprašujete:"Who the F*** is Jim?"
Tip je že 27 let v zaporu, natančneje v umobolnici. Pri 38-ih jo je najprej s kladivom načel, da bi jo zatem z nožem pokončal.
Koga?
Lastno mater.
Štajerci bi temu rekli ikebana.
A preden je Jim postal Natural Born Killer, je James bil Natural Born Drummer!
James Beck Gordon rojen 14. julija 1945 bolj poznan kot Jim Gordon, je ameriški glasbenik in skladatelj. Dobil je tudi Grammy-a za svojo pesem, in to kar med prestajanjem kazni.
Eni se še vedno sprašujete: "Za kaj?"
"Zato!"
Gordon je začel svojo karijero pri 17-ih v spremljevalni skupini dueta The Everly Brothers, da bi v zelo kratkem času postal eden izmed najbolj iskanih studijskih bobnarjev v Los Angelesu.
Zakaj sem se sploh lotil njega?
Na netu sem zaman iskal Top 10 njegovih glasbenih uslug.
"Kje je sploh špilou ta fant ?"
Našel nisem nič, ali pa zelo malo.
Zato sem se odločil, da naredim to kar sam. Top namreč.
TOP 20
Vabljeni na GORDONIJADO.
Jimove ročnonožne spretnosti - Prvič:
Nilsson - One 1968
Nilsson - Coconut 1971
No zdaj pa ni več vprašanj, si mislim.
Izbral sem Jimove najbolj poznane komade, ki pa jih mnogi poznate v kakšni drugi verziji.
Recimo Classical Gas me zelo spominja na en komad wd Metallice. Naj mi kdo pomaga kateri ?
Tistim, ki se še vedno sprašujete, za kateri komad je dobil Grammya je tukaj odgovor. Jim je soavtor pesmi Layla skupaj z Ericom Claptonom. Leta 1992 sta dobila Grammya za najboljšo rock pesem, za njima je ostala tudi Nirvana s pesmijo Smells Like Teen Spirit. Kakšna stvar potrebuje tudi 20 let, da se prime. Mogoče bo pa Nirvana dobila kakšno podobno nagrado, zdaj v kratkem? Kdo ve.
Summer Breeze so v hard-soul žganico predelali The Isley Brothers, pesem Midnight At The Oasis pa je bila veliki hit angleške skupine The Brand New Heavies.
Incredibile Bongo Band in groove na tej pesmi predstavlja za Afrika Bambaataa začetek Hip Hopa. Samplali so ga Sugarhill Gang, L.L.Cool J., The Roots, Nas, Future Sound of London, Moby, Goldie, Sir Mix-A-Lot, Fat Boy Slim, Beastie Boys, Madonna, Amy Winehouse, Young MC, The Notorius B.I.G., DJ Shadow, Missy Elliot...........................Nema da nema.
Da ne bom samo semplal.
Nekaterim je sigurno znana obdelava Joan Baez-Diamonds and Rust v izvedbi angleških Heavy Metal prvakov Judas Priest. Če vam pa ni, pa tut u redu.
V šoubiznis ga je lansiral starosta ameriške zahodne glasbene scene Hal Blaine, živa legenda.
A o njem kdaj drugič.
Jim je Anglijo prvič okusil z ameriško rock skupino Delaney & Bonnie. Igrati ga je slišal Eric Clapton in že je bil stalni član Derek & The Dominos. Obenem pa je obdeloval še angleško rock skupino Traffic.
The Beatles so ga slišali na ploščah genialnega ameriškega pevca in skladatelja Harrya Nilssona. Tudi Bacharachovi feni (Zappa, Fagen in Becker) se mu niso mogli upreti.
Le kako pa?
Konec 60-ih so mu pričeli šepetati različni glasovi. Šizofrenija bi rekli po domače. Zelo uspešno jih je poslušal dobro desetletje.
A takrat, ko šepet krik postane - uboge mame!
Ni kaj, kdor je učinkovit s palicami bo tudi z noži.
Če bi kateri med vami, hoteli še detalnejši vpogled v svetle globine morilčeve duše, prosim izvolite.
Tukaj so palice.
Najbolj popolna diskografija na spletu, izpod fanovega peresa Jim Gordon Discography.
Bobnarska nebesa Drummerworld.
Brez nje ne gre, tukaj je Knjiga Frisov.
Baje, da se ves ta čas ni niti enkrat samkrat opaličil. Kakšna škoda.
Razloži si. Raznoži se Jim.
SREČNO!
___________________________________________________
Dodajam še izvrsten članek iz revije Rolling Stone.
WHEN THE VOICES TOOK OVER
She wanted him to kill her. The voices ‐ her voice ‐ had said so. It was her voice that helped him pick out the eight‐and‐a‐quarter‐inch butcher knife, and had him sharpen it. And he would do what the voices told him to do because he always listened to them, even though they had
ruined his life.
It was some life.
James Beck Gordon had been, quite simply, one of the greatest drummers of his time. In the
Sixties and Seventies he had played with John Lennon, George Harrison, Eric Clapton, the Everly Brothers, the Beach Boys, Judy Collins, Joe Cocker, Frank Zappa, Duane Allman, Carly Simon, Jackson Browne and Joan Baez. But the gigs had long since come to an end, and on June 3rd, 1983, there was nothing on his mind except killing his mother.
The voices told him what to do next. One said to hit her with a hammer first, so she would not suffer when he stabbed her with the knife. He would obey. He packed the hammer and the
knife in a small leather attache case and that afternoon drove his white Datsun 200SX the five
miles from his Van Nuys condominium to his mother's small North Hollywood apartment. When he got there, she was not in, so he went home and waited. At about 11:30 that evening he returned. A light was on inside, and when he knocked on the door, he could hear Osa Marie
Gordon shuffling across the floor in her slippers.
When his mother opened the door, the six‐foot‐three Gordon stared down at the heavyset
seventy‐two‐year‐old gray‐haired woman for only an instant. "Jim,” she said, in that eternally
irretrievable moment before he hit her. As she screamed, he struck her with the hammer three more times, then as she fell to the floor he plunged the knife into her chest three times, and left it there ‐ dead center.
At his trial in Los Angeles last spring, James Beck Gordon was found guilty of second‐degree
murder and sentenced to sixteen years to life. The defense had argued insanity ‐ but a tough
new California law makes it almost impossible to prove that anyone is legally insane. Still, no
one ‐ neither the prosecution nor the presiding judge ‐ disagreed with the diagnosis of the five
defense psychiatrists that Gordon was an acute schizophrenic. No one, that is, except Gordon.
"They call everybody that,” he said last August in a heavily secured prison meeting room at the California Men's Colony in San Luis Obispo. While talking, Gordon, 39, had trouble getting the hang of rolling a cigarette, and he smiled at his frustration. It was a warm, ingratiating smile that was as much a part of his being as the fact that he had brutally murdered his mother. "I really don't feel that crazy,” he added. "I get along with people. I think I'm pretty normal."
Gordon spoke softly and calmly. He was taking a powerful antipsychotic drug daily, and it
seemed to help him feel better about himself, but he also appeared to believe what he said. It
was, of course, all part of the delusion. So much had happened that it spilled out in great
torrents from fellow musicians, friends, doctors, and Gordon himself. The murder of his mother was only the final act of madness. Throughout his life there had been a series of disturbing eruptions that gave clear signs of the psychosis destroying his mind. And yet many of them were minimized or overlooked by those around him. The business of making music had much to do with it. In that maddeningly creative, nomadic world where geniuses, superstars, impresarios, fakers, freaks and free spirits vie for the spotlight, Gordon's was just another act. That no one cried out before the disaster was just one of the many tragedies in a life that was, for a long time, "pretty normal."
With his curly blond hair and beefy build, James Beck Gordon was a California golden hunk in an Ozzie and Harriet family. Home was a small house in Sherman Oaks, a quiet bedroom
community in Los Angeles's San Fernando Valley. It was a neighborhood where boys like James and his older brother, John, mowed the lawn, shined their father's shoes and minded their manners. When either brother spoke, it was always "Please," "Thank You" and, on the phone, "Gordon residence."
When the decorum was shattered, it was in gentle Fifties sitcom fashion. At age eight, Gordon
made a set of drums out of trash cans and held his musical debut in the room he shared with
his brother. But instead of throwing the cans out, his parents paid for music lessons. Both
parents were solid breadwinners. His father was an accountant, while his mother was a nurse in the maternity ward of a local hospital. By twelve, Gordon had his own set of drums and after additions to the house, a room of his own to play them in.
There was only one stain on this picture‐perfect scene from suburbia, and it was hidden from
view. When Gordon was a boy, his father was an alcoholic. It was his mother's strength that
held the family together until the children reached adolescence and her husband joined
Alcoholics Anonymous, stopped drinking and became a full‐time father again, happily managing his sons' Little League team and playing the role of neighborhood chauffeur.
"They were good parents,” Gordon says simply. Yet, even within the relative tranquility of his family circle, there were warnings of the nightmares to come. Although he played frequently with his brother and was treated as the baby of the family by his parents, he says he felt left out. Eating made him feel better, but it only added to his insecurity; he was heavy, and sensitive about his weight. There was only once comfort to which he could turn; the voices. He seemed to need them. They were his friends, a child's companions ‐ someone to talk to ‐ safe, loyal, kind.
"Those voices were totally within the realm of reality for a small boy,” says Dr. William Vicary, one of the defense psychologists, "but they were also indicative of the paranoiac insecurities he would fall prey to later."
Whatever insecurities he felt as a child, they were not easily justifiable for the teenage Gordon. Tall, husky, handsome and winsomely shy, he was elected class president in junior high school. His rising popularity paralleled his increasing devotion to music. While in high school, he played with the Burbank Symphony, toured Europe one summer and performed in the Tournament of Roses Parade with a youth band. With a fake ID, so he could work as an adult, he took on jobs at weddings, bar mitzvahs and small clubs. Soon he was working weekends as part of a group called Frankie Knight and the Jesters. They played the clubs in Hollywood and West Los Angeles for five or ten dollars a night. It was barely spending money, but Gordon got more out of it than cash. The insecurities and the voices receded as though overwhelmed by the beat of the music.
His parents wanted him to go to college, and he considered becoming a music teacher. UCLA
offered him a music scholarship, but he turned it down. Too much was happening in the
industry for him to spend four more years in school.
The Los Angeles studio scene was the place to be for a talented young musician in the early
Sixties. It was where the best and highest‐paid sidemen came to do their most creative work,
laying down track after track until they had the perfect sound. Producer Phil Spector, with his
Wall of Sound, was a one‐man hit factory, rolling out gold records for the Crystals, the Ronettes, and the Righteous Brothers. Keeping time with Spector was surf music, as epitomized by the Beach Boys and Jan and Dean. Gordon pounced on whatever work he could get. A friend who played saxophone for Duane Eddy heard Gordon play with the Jesters and recommended him for a demo, the raw recording of a basic song. It was the lowest‐paying work, but for Gordon it was a great start. That and his Jester gigs were the best ways to get himself noticed. Everyone was hunting for talent, and the clubs Gordon played were crawling with scouts. One who spotted him was a bass player with the Everly Brothers. Rock's premier duo was gearing up for a summer tour of England in 1963, and after Gordon auditioned, the Everly Brothers wanted him to be their drummer. Although his parents disapproved, his pay would be low and his toehold in the studios would be lost, it was one spectacular graduation present, and Gordon jumped at the opportunity.
The tour was a success (he joined them for another the following year). When Gordon returned home, he was excited about making performing his career. It was slow going at first. He even had enough time on his hands to attend Los Angeles Valley College. Yet, if Gordon was learning anything that school year, it was not in junior college but in the A&B Corned Beef restaurant. There the great studio musicians hung out during their breaks, talking music and industry gossip. Gordon's club dates, demo work and Everly Brothers credit made him an accepted member of the club. Whenever he could, he grabbed a sandwich and picked up some
impromptu lessons by watching the great sidemen play. He was a quick study. Within a year, his formal education was over, and he was headed for a class by himself as a drummer.
At thirty‐five, Hal Blaine was the most respected session drummer in Los Angeles, with more
work than he could handle, when Gordon arrived on the scene. Blaine says, "His name was on
everybody's lips" Including Blaine's, and that was better than a meal ticket. "When I didn't have the time,” he says, "I recommended Jim. He was one hell of a drummer. I thought he was one of the real comers." Word spread that there was a hot new drummer around. Gordon was the "only living metronome" and had a "knack for hitting the sweet spot." Soon, like Blaine, he was handling two or three recording sessions a day, sometimes six, seven days a week and charging double time for it, something only the best could do. At that price, producers were also getting the drummer's own set, instead of jack‐of‐all‐beats student skins. The meticulous care Gordon gave his own kits made producers eager not only for his talent but for his sound. The big Gordon beat was soon a record‐industry standard. From a session with the Righteous Brothers, he and a set of his drums might travel to a date with Judy Collins while another set was being shipped to the day's final session with Bobby Darin, Gordon Lightfoot, Glen Campbell or Gary Puckett and the Union Gap. Almost overnight the money was rolling in, and he handled it well. After all, his father was an accountant, and proud of it, too.
In 1964 Gordon married an attractive, vivacious dancer whom his mother had liked ever since
he had begun going with her during his youth‐band days. In many ways, Jim and Jill Gordon
were an ideal couple. Music continued to be a bond in marriage, as both landed jobs on the
prime‐time‐television rock show "Shindig.” Together they bought a Mercedes 220S and a
Spanish‐style two‐bedroom house in North Hollywood. It was not far from Gordon's parents'
house, and they dined there regularly.
As the Sixties raced along, the times‐they‐are‐a‐changin' energy made Gordon restless. He tried to break with his routine by forming his own group, but they made only one album before splitting up. He then grew closer to Leon Russell and Rita Coolidge, who had recorded a popular album with the white soul duo Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett.
Delaney and Bonnie were getting set to tour England in 1969 and had a drummer, Jim Keltner, but Gordon wanted to go. "He traded me some studio gigs for a chance with Delaney and Bonnie,” recalls Keltner, who worked with John Lennon, George Harrison, Bob Dylan and Randy Newman. "He became the main guy because he was better."
Shortly before Jim left for England, Jim and Jill were divorced. Their marriage had lasted five
years and produced one child, a daughter. True to his paternal roots, Gordon made sure he was paid more than any of the sidemen. But Delaney and Bonnie could afford to pay him a little extra. The tour was almost guaranteed to be a success. The duo was far more popular in
England than in the States, and with the addition of a couple of unemployed guitarists named
Eric Clapton and George Harrison, the tour took on superstar trappings.
"He was gentle," says Bonnie Bramlett about Gordon, "sincere, considerate, brutally handsome, charming as a snake, and could he play! He was right on the money. I could do whatever I wanted. I was really enjoying myself. We all were. And it showed." Audiences everywhere caught the spirit. The tour sold out, and a live album was a critical and financial success. Delaney and Bonnie thought they had the makings of a long and fruitful collaboration, but they were wrong.Nearly everyone from the Delaney and Bonnie ensemble left to join Leon Russell for Joe Cocker's soon‐to‐be infamous Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour. "When they left,” says Bramlettin a bittersweet voice, "we were the last to know, and it broke our hearts." The tour had been Leon Russell's idea, with a little help from a canine friend named Canina. The show hadeverything: not only Canina but booze and drugs, a menage of groupies, wives and children, alive‐record contract and a film crew taking it all in for a feature‐length movie.
Sheer genius, total decadence, utter madness and knockout showmanship mixed in equal
measure. Cocker led by example. Alternating between performing brilliantly and forgetting the words to his songs, he could be an inspiration on the tour one day, then throw up in public the next. All the while, drink and drugs were the red and green lights directing the action onstage and off: heroin, mescaline, speed, MDA, cocaine, acid. "The real decrepit things went on,” says Keltner, who came along to play double drums with Gordon. "The drugs were easy to get. I wasn't a stranger to them myself. Now I feel like I'm lucky to have survived them."
Gordon seemed to more than survive drugs then. He was a superman. For a young man who
had never before done anything stronger than grass, Gordon did drugs prodigiously. Before one concert in Seattle, Gordon got Keltner to drop acid with him. During a rendition of "Bird on the Wire,” Keltner was unable to continue. Gordon tried to coach him, to no avail. Keltner left in tears, while Gordon powered on. It went that way the whole tour: Gordon playing at the top of his stroke while he swallowed smoked and snorted anything he could get his hands on. He was trying to keep the demons at bay. "I had a feeling I was being watched,” he says, "but it was all in the background."
The voices were pattering ‐ they did not like the drug business ‐ but there were mere murmurs then, perhaps no more than childhood memories or his conscience. Gordon ignored them. Everything was going along so smoothly. He avoided the groupie scene in favor of a steady relationship with Rita Coolidge. They spent nearly all their spare time together. He bought her a fox‐fur coat. They collaborated in writing music and laughed over who was the poorer piano player. But it all came to an abrupt end one afternoon in a room at the Warwick Hotel, in New York, where the band was hanging out. "He asked me to step out into the hall,” Coolidge says, "I thought he wanted to talk; instead he hit me."
The blow sent her sprawling and left her with a black eye for the rest of the tour. It was then, as now, inexplicable. It appeared simply to be the first chapter of a paranoid madness. Gordon is sheepish about it now. He was apologetic then. He left books of poetry for Coolidge, but she would no longer have anything to do with him. In a madmen's tour, the incident was quickly buried by others, and Gordon continued on a roll. When the tour ended, Gordon got a call from George Harrison in London. He wanted Gordon to join him as well as Clapton and Phil Spector in making his first solo album, the landmark "All Things Must Pass.” After they finished, Clapton asked Gordon if he wanted to form a band. Gordon said yes, settled in a Chelsea flat and bought a Ferrari. Together with Bobby Whitlock, Carl Randle and Duane Allman, he and Clapton formed Derek and the Dominos.
It was an unparalleled combination of creativity and star‐crossed lives. Clapton was the Mozart of rock, a man of seemingly limitless talent nearing ruin. He was not alone: heroin was a favorite drug in the group. Still, the music fell into place. Gordon and Clapton wrote the classic "Layla,” the title cut of the group's only studio album. Clapton wrote the driving first half, and Gordon added the inspired piano melody on the haunting second half, one of the products of his work with Coolidge. The group broke up acrimoniously after its only tour in 1972, citing differences over money and artistic direction, but the drugs had had much to do with it, too.
"The producers wouldn't pay me for Layla,” Gordon recalls, "because they said I would be dead in six months anyway." As sobering as that may have been ‐ especially given the drug‐related
deaths of Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin as well as Duane Allman's later fatal motorcycle accident ‐ Gordon kept doing drugs, graduating from snorting to mainlining heroin. And he kept up his feverish work pace.
John Lennon brought Gordon aboard for his solo album "Imagine.” (They had played together when Gordon, Clapton and Harrison joined Lennon's Plastic Ono Band for a UNICEF concert in London in 1969.) Next he took over the drumming for Traffic on "The Low Spark of High‐Heeled Boys" and the tour that followed. When he returned to London, he did studio sessions for producer Richard Perry, including Carly Simon's "You're So Vain." Then he was ready to go home to California. He was tiring of the cycle of drugs and work, and he had just received his own warning of the damage they could do. Driving on a rain‐soaked road, his mind had drifted and he had totaled his Ferrari.
Word of how he had changed ‐ the drugs and alcohol, the accident and his treatment of
Coolidge ‐ preceded Gordon to L.A. He was labeled another drugged‐out superstar casualty,
unable to deal with the pressure, the work and the drugs. Yet, when he got back, it was as if he
had never left. Gordon was in such demand that he could pick and choose his recording dates.
The music industry was booming. There was a feeling that the impossible could be done every
day, and new groups and sounds were being tried out everywhere. Although the risks of failure
were high, so were the payoffs. The record companies made sure they had a safety net. When a
band got in the studio, a new range of high‐tech equipment as well as sidemen like Gordon
were waiting there to prevent any bad recording cuts. "In most cases,” says producer Michael
Omartian, "drummers in a group had to get used to the fact that when they got into the studio,
they were going to be replaced by Jim."
He never let up. He was working in studios constantly, with Steely Dan ("Rikki Don't Lose That Number"), Johnny Rivers (L.A. Reggae), Maria Muldaur ("Midnight at the Oasis") and many others. Any doubts about the staying power of his talents quickly disappeared. He had gotten away with it.
Excepting his father's death in 1973, Gordon remembers the period following his return from
England as one of the best in his life. He bought a house in Sherman Oaks and a new Mercedes
450SLC, saw his daughter again and married singer and songwriter Renee Armand. For a time, he also stayed away from drugs. Still, he was not entirely clean. "I guess I was an alcoholic,” he says now, contemplating the slide from drugs too booze. "Before, I was drinking every night, but I wasn't getting up in the morning for a drink; I would put a needle in my arm. When I stopped taking the heroin, I began to drink all day."
He didn't stop doing drugs for long. Speedballs ‐ cocaine mixed with heroin ‐ became his
passion. Still, he was always there when a record producer needed him, and he was one
sideman who never excused himself during a session to do a line. His reputation was so solid
that even those who took no part in the drug and alcohol culture, like the Osmonds, were glad
to have him play with them. Nevertheless, there was something churning up Gordon's insides.
It was as if there was a struggle for control over him ‐ and he was slowly losing. He went from
warm to polite; from friendly to pleasant; from quiet to uncommunicative. During session
breaks, he would stand alone in the corner mumbling to himself. He told a friend not to give out his telephone number ‐ he didn't want to talk to anyone. "He was always a quiet guy,” says bass player Max Bennett, "but the quiet became very loud, and everybody left him alone."
Gordon gradually retreated, like someone with a terrible secret. Sometimes he would disappear for days, isolating himself in some out‐of‐the‐way hotel. His old childhood insecurities returned, but they were grown up now, into full‐blown paranoia. He felt unwanted and unsure of himself. Life atop the drummer's pedestal was shaky. He had an irrational fear of the latest crop of drummers who were swarming all over Los Angeles. When the Souther‐Hillman‐Furay Band was forming in 1973, Gordon surprised Chris Hillman by quietly asking for an audition when the job was his without question.
This was not the Jim Gordon anyone knew, and few knew who or what was taking his place. In a business where so many had an intimate relationship with drugs and booze, there was an
unquiet feeling that whatever was wrong with Gordon, it bore little resemblance to anything
they had ever seen at the end of a needle or at the bottom of a bottle. "The paranoia,” explains
Dr. Vicary, "was just one symptom of his illness. It is often one of the earliest signs of
schizophrenia. 'I'm okay', he might say. 'They're all just out to get me.' The 'they' are often real
people in the beginning. When more advanced symptoms turn up, delusions and hallucinations, they can become imaginary voices and people."
Gordon's wife Renee was perhaps the first to glimpse the otherworldly horror in his soul. Theirs had always been a mercurial relationship, certified by an overnight trip to Las Vegas and held together by their mutual love of music. Gordon played the drums, guitar and piano on her solo album, The Rain Book, and arranged and wrote some of the music. But whatever the difficulties that arose in their marriage, Armand was not prepared for the violence.
She was just coming home from shopping one afternoon, hadn't even put the groceries down,
when Gordon confronted her. He looked down at her with a menacing stare, his eyes
narrowing. It was a look that would chill many over the next decade. "I know what you're
doing," he said. She said she didn't know what he was talking about. He pointed to three
objects on the floor. "The magic triangle," he said. He accused her of being responsible for evil
spirits in the house. She denied it, and then he punched her, cracking several ribs. "I loved him
very much," says Armand. "I didn't know what had happened to him, but I couldn't stay after
that."
His marriage was over after only six months, but Gordon did not remain alone. The voices kept him company. They were back. He doesn't know how, why or from where they came, only that they were back. Of that he was sure. He was stone‐cold sober and straight when he heard
them. No more murmurs hiding in the background. They were everywhere. As they became
part of his daily life, they took on real identities. There was a family of voices, with faces he
could see in his mind but whose names he did not know. The leader was a man with a white
beard, and the group included a young blonde woman and another who was dark and Greek.
Some he knew well: his brother, his aunt and, most of all, his mother.
"The voices started out friendly," he says. "They were giving me little pointers. How to take
care of myself and the house. How to shop. I was glad for the help. I was getting ready for the
rest of my life. I thought it was pretty strange, but there was nothing I could do about it. I heard them all the time. They would tell me if I was doing right or wrong. And I took it in like a fool. They said I had some kind of responsibility to God and country. I was the king of the universe, they said. I had to make sacrifices, and I had to do what they said. That's when my mother started making me eat half my food."
There was no more reason for eating less than there was for the existence of the voices. But
however many calories he lost in food, there were more in the alcohol he consumed. He could
drink a fifth of scotch or vodka a day and still work. No one knew about the battle raging for his mind. He was still the king of the calfskins, with all the privileges that went with it.
If one woman left him, there was always another one eager to take her place, though there
were now few women part of the social swirl who did not know the risk they were taking. One
was a secretary named Stacey Bailey, who got to know Gordon while working for Bread. She
moved in with him and for a long time beat the odds. In fact, there were times when Gordon
was quietly at peace with himself. He earnestly recited passages from the Bible and was often a warm, sensitive person. He brought her breakfast in bed, got her a seat next to Bob Dylan at a Joan Baez concert and took care of her dog and its newborn puppies when she went to visit her parents.
But there was also ample reason to be on guard. A dangerous Orestes was on the prowl, stirred on by fear and insecurity and the voices. He shared the secret of the voices with Bailey and complained about his mother. Although he made no link between the two, his complaints
about his mother were the same as those about the voices. He tried so hard to please his
mother, he told Bailey, but that was not enough for her. His mother wanted to control his life,
as all women did. Bailey was sleeping one night when she woke up unable to breathe. Gordon
was choking her.
"God, did I talk!" she says. "I don't know what I said. I said whatever came into my mind, and I tried to stay calm. I knew I just had to convince him that he had to stop." She was on the verge of passing out when he loosened his grip. He repeated the cycle again and again. Finally, he released her and fell back on the bed laughing. It was all a joke, he said. Hysterical, Bailey ran to the neighbors. He cried. "I just wanted to see if you really cared about me," he told her. "His violent feelings toward women," says Dr. Vicary, "probably could be traced to the fact that his mother was the strong parent, perhaps the one responsible for discipline. It's not much to hang your hat on, but he didn't need much. He was ‐ is ‐ crazy."
The violence Gordon committed against women was his personal affair, and as long as he kept
it that way, no one in the business ‐ virtually all of them men ‐ said anything. Yet for Gordon
every day was becoming a struggle. The voices were tormenting him now to the point that it
made it harder and harder for him to control his rage. His main defense was his politeness and
keeping his distance from people.
Gordon's defenses were damaged, and the emotional wall was not going to hold. He had to
patch it up. He gave up drugs for good and, with his mother's help, went on the wagon. It was
only a band‐aid solution, though. Gordon needed the drink to fight the relentless voices, and in a short time he was drinking more than ever. The madness was winning, and soon everyone
would know it.
The first time most people in the L.A. music scene remember hearing about Gordon's
deteriorating mental state was after the recording of Johnny Rivers' "Outside Help" in 1977.
During one session Gordon suddenly stopped playing. The whole studio grew still as Gordon
glared at guitarist Dean Parks. "You're messing with my time," Gordon said, rising to his feet
menacingly. Parks denied it. He and Gordon had done a lot of work together, including Baez'
"Diamonds and Rust" and "Gulf Winds,” and nothing like this had happened before.
"You're moving my hands," Gordon continued. "I want you to stop it." Parks assured him that it was impossible for him to do anything from across the room. Gordon grudgingly began playing again, but a few sessions later he railed at someone else. Gordon was becoming a liability. Record producers would not hire him anymore. With few recording dates being offered, Gordon wound up doing lower‐paying work, like television, movies and commercials.
He had become the industry's quiet embarrassment, but he made it easier for everybody else
by making himself less available by touring and recording in Canada with Burton Cummings. But the change in atmosphere did him little good. There was just no escape. The combination of work, drink, the voices and life on the run was killing him. "I couldn't cope with being outside anymore," he says. "The voices were chasing me around. Making me drive to different places. Starving me. I was only allowed one bite of food a meal. And, if I disobeyed, the voices would fill me with a rage, like the Hulk gets."
By 1977, his mother's voice all but consumed his every waking hour. He told her to leave him
alone. When that did not work, he telephoned his mother and told her the same thing.
Naturally, she did not know what he was talking about. "She said I needed help," he says, "so I
went to Van Nuys Psychiatric Hospital." It was the first of at least fourteen times that he would check himself into a hospital over the next six years. He told doctors that he couldn't sleep, that he heard voices, including his mother's, and that he felt guilty about taking drugs and leaving his former wife Jill. His mother visited, and he told doctors that she was "the only friend" he had. Allowing for his ambivalent feelings toward her, the doctors gave their permission for him to go home with her on weekends. Even then he would hear her voice tormenting him, and again the cycle of accusations and denials would begin. After only two months, he checked himself out of the hospital, against his doctor's advice. But Gordon agreed to see a doctor as an outpatient. On September 3rd, when he did not show up for an appointment, his doctor called Gordon's mother. She found him at home, unconscious. He was rushed to the hospital, suffering from an overdose of the sedatives prescribed by his psychiatrist.
At his next meeting with his doctor he apologized for attempting to commit suicide. The voices, he explained, did not care if he killed himself. As serious as his condition was, he would not continue therapy. The rage inside him made it impossible for him to keep his appointments. So he reluctantly went back to work, doing mostly commercials and movies. Then a friend recommended him to Jackson Browne, who was going on tour. It was the spring of 1978, and Gordon saw it as a chance for a comeback.
The tour was uneventful for Gordon, just as he wanted it. He jogged and played racquetball
with Browne. "We played all the time," says Browne. "It was pretty well known that he had had a breakdown, but I wanted him on the tour. You just wanted to root for him. He cut such a
gallant figure, with his open white silk shirts and felt Borsalino hat, and he was such a good
drummer. He'd get my attention with this great fill, really imaginative. He just rose to the
occasion."
Yet, when Gordon got back from the tour, he saw that little had changed. If anything, things
had gotten worse. The music business was in a profound slump. Record sales were nose‐diving, and artists were having a tough time getting their records produced. Sidemen were suddenly expendable. With Gordon's emotional state as well as his talents and dependability suspect, few record producers called.
Frequently out of work, Gordon would go on drinking binges for months in an effort to drown
out the voices. But it did no good. Nor did calls to his mother and even to his brother, John, a
bank executive in Seattle. He was falling totally under the control of the voices. They would not even allow him to accept all of the few jobs he was offered. When Bob Dylan called late the
following spring to talk about the Slow Train Coming tour, the voices ‐ his mother's voice ‐
forced Gordon to say he was not interested.
Hanging up on Dylan hurt Gordon terribly, and he was determined not to let it happen again. A short time later, when Paul Anka offered him a job in Las Vegas, Gordon accepted. Then his
mother's voice delivered the most crushing blow. "I flew to Vegas," Gordon says, "played a
couple of notes. My mother said to leave, and I had to obey."
He returned severely depressed and in November checked himself into Valley Presbyterian
Hospital. It was one of his worst stays. He was so upset that he threatened to kill a nurse. He
doesn't remember threatening her, but he remembers the incident. "She wouldn't leave me
alone," he says, "and my mother was working on me. The nurse told me nothing was wrong
with me. I had a pain in my back. It was a psychological pain. I broke a potted plant. I ran down the stairs yelling, 'Let me go. Let me go.'" Again, as he did over and over, he checked out
against doctors' advice. It was all over, though. Whatever jobs followed were of little
consequence, and by 1980 he was, for all practical purposes, no longer a professional musician.
"He couldn't function in the normal everyday world," says guitarist Larry Rolando, one of the
few friends Gordon saw then. With substantial savings, smart real estate investments and
royalty payments coming in steadily, he could still afford to do anything or nothing. He stopped playing his drums. There were periods where he would not bathe, shave or change clothes for days, and others where he would dress up and go to church. He spent much of his time sleeping, watching old movies on television, writing songs he would never finish, playing the same song endlessly on his piano late at night and drinking more than he ever had. When he checked into the hospital again, on June 5th, 1980, he had already consumed two‐thirds of a bottle of cognac and half a gallon of wine during the day.
He was gaining weight, and the doctors warned him that he was destroying his liver. The
doctors never helped him, he thought. He only went because he had to play his mother's
voice's little games. "She liked hospitals because she was a nurse," he says, "and her torture
things were based on what they do in them, like eat part of your food, sit up, lay down."
And yet he would turn to her when he got out. That, too, was part of the game. He had to see
her or suffer the consequences. The line between mother and voice grew fainter until it did not
exist. She was the voice, and the voice was her. His obsession with her voice was becoming his
whole life. She was a woman of unspeakable evil. He thought ‐ still does ‐ she killed Paul Lynde and Karen Carpenter. At times he figured that his mother wanted him to die, because his purposefulness ‐ whatever that was ‐ was over. At other times he thought that she would
rather torment him until the day she died. "She knew what she was doing," he says. "She was
ruining my life. That's what she wanted to do."
Nothing was right or even safe for him. He stopped going to a bar, he told Rolando, because
there were evil people in it. He was uncomfortable wherever he lived, so he moved from one
place to another. No car suited his needs. Within two years, he went from his Mercedes to a
Capri, a Scirocco, a Volkswagen van and finally Datsun.
Gordon prepared for the worst. He rented a storage garage and packed it with freeze‐dried
food in expectation of the world's end. His record of child‐support payments was unblemished, and he paid his bills on time: if he died suddenly, he would not owe anyone any money. Every so often he would make an attempt to break out of his depression. Reminiscent of his Jester days, he played the Los Angeles club scene for a while, at spots like Chadney's, O'Mahoney's and the Century Club. He talked of forming a band with Rolando. "What could you say?" asks Rolando. "Who had any experience with whatever was wrong with him? He wouldn't talk. Then there was that look. He didn't trust anyone. One morning, at seven, he called about the band. 'I can't do this,' he said in a very cold voice. 'My jaw, my shoulder. You don't know the pain. If I picked up my drumsticks, it would kill me.'"
Toward the end of 1982, the pain had become unbearable. On October 22nd, he checked into
the hospital and told the doctors that he felt he was dying of "hate" and that his "world was
falling apart." There seemed precious little left that he could do to end his misery. He could kill himself or he could kill his mother. Both ideas wrestled viciously for dominance.
In the spring of 1983 his mother decided to write him. She had not seen her son in two years.
He had avoided her, and she was often out of the city. For a time, she lived near Lake Tahoe,
and although retired from nursing, she worked part time as a physical therapist throughout the state.
In a letter dated May 23rd ‐ but never opened by Gordon ‐ his mother tried to reassure him that whatever was going on in his mind, she was not the cause. "I think of you so often and wonder how things are going for you," She wrote. Then she told him of her plans to move to Seattle in a month. Part of her reason for moving was to get a safe distance away from her son, but of course she did not write that. She told him only that she was going to live with John and his family. They had a large house. It would allow her plenty of privacy and at the same time give her the security of having family around if she needed it. She finished the letter by writing, "I love you, Jim, more than you know. Just remember, I am as close to you as your phone."
She had mentioned her plans to him previously over the phone, and he says now he thought
they were "great." But that is the son talking. The schizophrenic was hearing a different
message. "She wanted me to throw my drums away, do all these impossible things. We'd been
over the same ground so many times that I knew what was expected of me. She said, 'You're
going to kill me,' or something like that.
It was 9:30 p.m. on June 1st when her telephone rang. "You're bugging me again," Gordon told his mother, who was by then writing everything down. "I'm going to kill you." As always, she denied his accusations. After he hung up, she called the Medical Center of North Hollywood and asked a nurse if her son had been there. She was told that Gordon had been admitted that day. He had been drinking and he said, "I want Thorazine [an antipsychotic drug]. I am feeling very violent." ("Agitated," Gordon recalls.) But the doctor was not in yet, and Gordon angrily left. Osa called the local police. The desk officers on duty at the time said there was nothing that they could do and suggested that she leave the lights on in her house. He also wished her luck. She next tried John, but no one was home. At 11:40 p.m. Gordon called again, and the conversation was a repeat of the previous one, but there was nothing more she could do. She decided against calling John again because it was too late. The following day, Thursday, she called the city attorney's office about having her son served with a restraining order. She faced a formidable bureaucracy, though, and hung up.
Osa Gordon didn't call anyone after that day or the next. She had, after all, been dealing with
her son's illness for a decade and had to manage only a few more weeks alone. Although it was
necessary to treat her son cautiously, he had never raised a hand against her, and no doctor
had ever warned her that he might. It was perhaps with these thoughts in mind that she
opened her door to her son when he suddenly appeared late that fatal Friday night.
There were no witnesses to the murder, but neighbors heard the screams and called the police. When they went to Gordon's apartment early the next morning, it was to notify him of his mother's death. The police found Gordon moaning and sobbing, face down on his living‐room floor. He had been sober when he killed his mother, but afterward he had been to a bar and to Chadney's, where he had several double margaritas, Long Island iced teas and then, once home, a fifth of vodka. Still, he was coherent, and as the police lifted him to his feet, he confessed. "I had no interest in killing her," Gordon says. "I wanted to stay away from her. I had no choice. It was so matter‐of‐fact, like I was being guided like a zombie. She wanted me to kill her, and good riddance to her."
His mother's voice is gone now, but Gordon still hears the others. The psychiatrists can shed
little light on the origins of his illness. "He was strongly predisposed to becoming a
schizophrenic," says Dr. Vicary, "and without that, it just won't happen. The stress of working in a highly pressured, idiosyncratic business like music was a contributing factor, and the drugs and the alcohol, used as self‐medication, didn't do him any good."
The doctors are not optimistic about his recovery, especially since he is behind bars instead of
in a hospital. He will continue to suffer delusions and paranoia and to have intensely
ambivalent feelings toward himself and those people whose voices he hears.
His brother's is the most prominent now. Gordon generally gets along with the voice except
when it starts to nag him. The voice says he cannot eat desserts. But that is all right, too, even
though he has lost more than enough weight to assuage the guilt of the boy drummer inside of
him. Far blacker thoughts have crossed his mind since he killed his mother. Gordon attempted to commit suicide by slashing his wrists while he was in the Los Angeles County Jail. Now, at San Luis Obispo, one gets the feeling that all he wants to do is fit in.
"They have a band here," he says, with a smile. "I'm going to try to get into it."
If the voices let him.
By Barry Rehfeld Rolling Stone‐ June 6th, 1985
Še dobro, da se kdaj zmotim, ker če ne bi si mislil, da vse vem.
Jim še vedno igra!
James Beck Gordon: The Drum Czar
If someone told me I would someday be in a rock ’n’ roll band playing bass with “Superman” on drums, in prison, I would have suggested that they get their head examined. Just so happens, I did indeed play with Superman—a Superman drummer, that is.
James Beck Gordon is that drummer. Gordon, Grammy Award winner, was one of the most sought-out tour and session drummers in the late 1960s and 1970s, recording records with the top musicians of that era. Gordon’s discography is extensive. He worked with such top names as Derek and the Dominoes (with Eric Clapton), Joe Cocker, Alice Cooper, The Byrds, Frank Zappa, Duane Allman, The Beach Boys, Jackson Browne, Joan Baez, George Harrison, John Lennon, B.B. King, Steely Dan, Merle Haggard, Neil Diamond and dozens more.
Gordon was born on the East Coast on July 14, 1945. His parents moved to California when he was a toddler. He was drawn to percussion at the age of eight, igniting what would become his life dream and passion—to be a drummer. Precisely placed trash cans in Gordon’s backyard were this precocious kid’s first drum set.
Gordon’s bounteous music career came to a crashing halt on June 3, 1983, when he took his own mother’s life during a drunken stupor, supplemented by a yet-undiagnosed illness of paranoid schizophrenia. In May 1984, he was sentenced to 16 years to life for second-degree murder and sent to state prison. A then-recently passed California law severely restricted the insanity defense that might have held him not responsible for his actions.
Gordon had been in prison for about 12 years when I met him. I was being transferred from higher “Level IV” security prisons (like Folsom and San Quentin) and had requested to be placed in California Men’s Colony (CMC) in San Luis Obispo because the grapevine said it had one of the most active music programs in the state. I wound up becoming one of several music coordinators at that prison (as well as editor of the prison newspaper, The Communicator).
As a musician and a child of the 1960s, I was eager to meet Gordon. I wanted to see how he was faring and ask if he would be willing to play with some of us in the band room. I had heard that when he first came to prison he had played a little, but had become discouraged, for reasons unknown to me. Now that I know something about schizophrenia, I can guess that his symptoms, like hearing voices or mistrusting people, contributed to his reluctance to play.
Whatever the case, I found it hard to believe that someone with his talent and love for music would not want to play and decided to find out for myself. After all, music had been his life. A singer friend of mine, Bill Friery, who lived in the same cellblock as Gordon, set up a meeting. That day, Friery pointed to a guy standing by himself near a fence on the far side of the prison yard, under one of the gun towers in the corner. The man was chain-smoking and shifting his weight from one foot to the other. I later learned that this is typical behavior from someone fighting the horrible effects of psychotropic drugs. Friery looked me straight in the eyes and said, “That’s Jim Gordon. Brother, good luck.”
This photo, taken on March 19, 1996, is Sounds Incarcerated. From L-R: Randy Chaplain, Boston Woodard, Jim Gordon, Joe Shelton, Wolfgang Cribbs.
You didn’t have to be a psychiatrist to see that Gordon had some sort of inner conflict going on. I remember my first thought was, “How can the prison system let a man become so wasted and alone?” As I approached, Gordon was lighting another crudely rolled cigarette from the spent end of another. His overall appearance was slightly disheveled, and the tips of his fingers were terribly stained from too many cigarettes held too close to the end. He was looking at me over the rim of a thick pair of glasses and before I could say anything, he pushed the glasses to the top of his nose with one finger, held out his hand and said, “Hi, man, how’s it going?”
We shook hands and I introduced myself. Jim was about six foot two, weighing more than 200 pounds, with gray/white hair. He was soft-spoken and friendly. When I asked him if we could talk about music, he stared at the ground for a moment, then looked up smiled and said he couldn’t think straight because of the medication they had him on. He said his mouth was dry and he needed some water. We walked to the water fountain, and after a drink we began to talk music.
There are a lot of stories about Gordon’s lashing out at people, suddenly erupting in psychotic outbursts. But during our more than two hours of conversation that day, there were no signs of anger, no drifting off, no eruptions of any sort. Before I left, I let Gordon know that we had a weekend session in the prison’s band room and that he was more than welcome to sit in if he’d like to.
The following weekend, I brought lead guitarist Joe Shelton, keyboardist Ron “Wolfgang” Cribbs, singer Randy Chaplin and drummer/singer Frierly to the band room. We didn’t see Gordon and surmised he had decided not to come that day. We were not surprised. After we had run through a couple of songs, I noticed someone looking through the door window. It was Gordon.
During a break, I went out to speak with Gordon, who had been standing around the corner listening to us. After a little coaxing, he came in and sat down on a plastic milk crate with hands deep in his coat pockets, staring at the floor. While we played, we made it clear through nods and smiles that we were happy to have Gordon among us.
After a half-dozen cigarettes and a hundred or so quick looks over the rim of his glasses, Gordon out of the blue asked if we knew the song “Crossroads,” a blues/rock standard best played by Gordon’s old band mate Clapton. Of course, we all knew the song. As we began, our drummer, Frierly, turned to Gordon and asked if he’d like to sit in. I fully expected him to decline, but amazingly he said, “Yes, OK.”
It was clear that Frierly was stoked to be playing with a man whose work he had admired and mimicked for years. Frierly was evidently beside himself, as in truth all of us were. Despite all the stories that Gordon had lost interest in music, there he was behind a drum set. My initial hunch had proved right, and I was about to play bass alongside James Beck Gordon.
Gordon asked if could adjust the drum setup, and Frierly said, “Whatever you need.” Gordon moved a couple of cymbal stands, removed an extra floor tom, lowered the drum stool, then without looking up said, “OK, let’s play.” Anyone who had said Gordon had lost his touch would have eaten a large plate of crow that day. We found out in a minute why Gordon had been so sought-out. His drumming was so steady, dynamic, impeccably clean. The man was a human metronome. The word “awesome” sprang to mind.
We played about 15 songs during that first session. He didn’t talk much, but what he lacked in words he made up for with each beat of the drum and crash of the cymbals. Before heading back to his cellblock, Gordon shook our hands and thanked us several times.
We all felt pretty good about getting Gordon to come out of his shell, reconnecting with his love of music. After he left, we talked on and on wondering if he would be part of the band I was organizing. Two of our group were about to be transferred to be closer to their homes, so we were in the process of re-grouping and having Gordon join us would be amazing…the Gordon of the magical percussion, not the withdrawn prisoner.
A few days later, as several of us passed through the last set of gates before the band room, we saw Gordon leaning against the door waiting for us. It was a surprise, but even more an honor. Gordon became an integral part of our new group, which we humorously wound up calling Sounds Incarcerated. Week after week, Gordon progressively became more sociable not only with the band members but also with other prisoners and the staff. He also began to talk about his involvement with music before coming to prison, his tours with people like Cocker and Baez, and particularly about his work with Derek and the Dominoes. He choked up when he talked about Clapton, who he said he loved like a brother.
One day while setting up equipment, our keyboardist Cribbs asked Gordon if he would show him the proper way to play the long piano coda in “Layla,” the song famous for Clapton and Duane Allman trading blues guitars with Gordon’s elegiac power chords behind. Everyone in the room stopped, becoming mesmerized by a piece of music heard on every rock radio station countless times over the past 35 years, now being played before their eyes. It was surreal watching Gordon do his thing but heartbreaking to watch him do it behind prison walls.
As a musician, it was entrancing to hear Gordon reminisce about his musical history. I asked him if I could write a piece about him for The Communicator, and he agreed. So for several days, we talked for hours about his life and music. When we were done, he told me how happy he was to participate in the music program. He became active in helping other musicians in the program and participated in dozens of shows for the always-grateful general prison population.
It’s been many years since I’ve seen Gordon. I had heard he had been in a facility in Vacaville but recently heard he may be back in San Luis Obispo. I can only hope he is well and still involved with what he does like no other, playing drums. My experience with Gordon showed again the power of music and how music can create an island of respite and deep connection even for those of us locked away in prison.
By Boston Woodard
*****
Boston Woodard is a prisoner/journalist serving his sentence in Susanville State Prison. Boston has written for the San Quentin News and the Soledad Star and edited The Communicator.
Jim še vedno igra!
James Beck Gordon: The Drum Czar
If someone told me I would someday be in a rock ’n’ roll band playing bass with “Superman” on drums, in prison, I would have suggested that they get their head examined. Just so happens, I did indeed play with Superman—a Superman drummer, that is.
James Beck Gordon is that drummer. Gordon, Grammy Award winner, was one of the most sought-out tour and session drummers in the late 1960s and 1970s, recording records with the top musicians of that era. Gordon’s discography is extensive. He worked with such top names as Derek and the Dominoes (with Eric Clapton), Joe Cocker, Alice Cooper, The Byrds, Frank Zappa, Duane Allman, The Beach Boys, Jackson Browne, Joan Baez, George Harrison, John Lennon, B.B. King, Steely Dan, Merle Haggard, Neil Diamond and dozens more.
Gordon was born on the East Coast on July 14, 1945. His parents moved to California when he was a toddler. He was drawn to percussion at the age of eight, igniting what would become his life dream and passion—to be a drummer. Precisely placed trash cans in Gordon’s backyard were this precocious kid’s first drum set.
Gordon’s bounteous music career came to a crashing halt on June 3, 1983, when he took his own mother’s life during a drunken stupor, supplemented by a yet-undiagnosed illness of paranoid schizophrenia. In May 1984, he was sentenced to 16 years to life for second-degree murder and sent to state prison. A then-recently passed California law severely restricted the insanity defense that might have held him not responsible for his actions.
Gordon had been in prison for about 12 years when I met him. I was being transferred from higher “Level IV” security prisons (like Folsom and San Quentin) and had requested to be placed in California Men’s Colony (CMC) in San Luis Obispo because the grapevine said it had one of the most active music programs in the state. I wound up becoming one of several music coordinators at that prison (as well as editor of the prison newspaper, The Communicator).
As a musician and a child of the 1960s, I was eager to meet Gordon. I wanted to see how he was faring and ask if he would be willing to play with some of us in the band room. I had heard that when he first came to prison he had played a little, but had become discouraged, for reasons unknown to me. Now that I know something about schizophrenia, I can guess that his symptoms, like hearing voices or mistrusting people, contributed to his reluctance to play.
Whatever the case, I found it hard to believe that someone with his talent and love for music would not want to play and decided to find out for myself. After all, music had been his life. A singer friend of mine, Bill Friery, who lived in the same cellblock as Gordon, set up a meeting. That day, Friery pointed to a guy standing by himself near a fence on the far side of the prison yard, under one of the gun towers in the corner. The man was chain-smoking and shifting his weight from one foot to the other. I later learned that this is typical behavior from someone fighting the horrible effects of psychotropic drugs. Friery looked me straight in the eyes and said, “That’s Jim Gordon. Brother, good luck.”
 |
| This photo, taken on March 19, 1996, is Sounds Incarcerated. From L-R: Randy Chaplain, Boston Woodard, Jim Gordon, Joe Shelton, Wolfgang Cribbs. |
This photo, taken on March 19, 1996, is Sounds Incarcerated. From L-R: Randy Chaplain, Boston Woodard, Jim Gordon, Joe Shelton, Wolfgang Cribbs.
You didn’t have to be a psychiatrist to see that Gordon had some sort of inner conflict going on. I remember my first thought was, “How can the prison system let a man become so wasted and alone?” As I approached, Gordon was lighting another crudely rolled cigarette from the spent end of another. His overall appearance was slightly disheveled, and the tips of his fingers were terribly stained from too many cigarettes held too close to the end. He was looking at me over the rim of a thick pair of glasses and before I could say anything, he pushed the glasses to the top of his nose with one finger, held out his hand and said, “Hi, man, how’s it going?”
We shook hands and I introduced myself. Jim was about six foot two, weighing more than 200 pounds, with gray/white hair. He was soft-spoken and friendly. When I asked him if we could talk about music, he stared at the ground for a moment, then looked up smiled and said he couldn’t think straight because of the medication they had him on. He said his mouth was dry and he needed some water. We walked to the water fountain, and after a drink we began to talk music.
There are a lot of stories about Gordon’s lashing out at people, suddenly erupting in psychotic outbursts. But during our more than two hours of conversation that day, there were no signs of anger, no drifting off, no eruptions of any sort. Before I left, I let Gordon know that we had a weekend session in the prison’s band room and that he was more than welcome to sit in if he’d like to.
The following weekend, I brought lead guitarist Joe Shelton, keyboardist Ron “Wolfgang” Cribbs, singer Randy Chaplin and drummer/singer Frierly to the band room. We didn’t see Gordon and surmised he had decided not to come that day. We were not surprised. After we had run through a couple of songs, I noticed someone looking through the door window. It was Gordon.
During a break, I went out to speak with Gordon, who had been standing around the corner listening to us. After a little coaxing, he came in and sat down on a plastic milk crate with hands deep in his coat pockets, staring at the floor. While we played, we made it clear through nods and smiles that we were happy to have Gordon among us.
After a half-dozen cigarettes and a hundred or so quick looks over the rim of his glasses, Gordon out of the blue asked if we knew the song “Crossroads,” a blues/rock standard best played by Gordon’s old band mate Clapton. Of course, we all knew the song. As we began, our drummer, Frierly, turned to Gordon and asked if he’d like to sit in. I fully expected him to decline, but amazingly he said, “Yes, OK.”
It was clear that Frierly was stoked to be playing with a man whose work he had admired and mimicked for years. Frierly was evidently beside himself, as in truth all of us were. Despite all the stories that Gordon had lost interest in music, there he was behind a drum set. My initial hunch had proved right, and I was about to play bass alongside James Beck Gordon.
Gordon asked if could adjust the drum setup, and Frierly said, “Whatever you need.” Gordon moved a couple of cymbal stands, removed an extra floor tom, lowered the drum stool, then without looking up said, “OK, let’s play.” Anyone who had said Gordon had lost his touch would have eaten a large plate of crow that day. We found out in a minute why Gordon had been so sought-out. His drumming was so steady, dynamic, impeccably clean. The man was a human metronome. The word “awesome” sprang to mind.
We played about 15 songs during that first session. He didn’t talk much, but what he lacked in words he made up for with each beat of the drum and crash of the cymbals. Before heading back to his cellblock, Gordon shook our hands and thanked us several times.
We all felt pretty good about getting Gordon to come out of his shell, reconnecting with his love of music. After he left, we talked on and on wondering if he would be part of the band I was organizing. Two of our group were about to be transferred to be closer to their homes, so we were in the process of re-grouping and having Gordon join us would be amazing…the Gordon of the magical percussion, not the withdrawn prisoner.
A few days later, as several of us passed through the last set of gates before the band room, we saw Gordon leaning against the door waiting for us. It was a surprise, but even more an honor. Gordon became an integral part of our new group, which we humorously wound up calling Sounds Incarcerated. Week after week, Gordon progressively became more sociable not only with the band members but also with other prisoners and the staff. He also began to talk about his involvement with music before coming to prison, his tours with people like Cocker and Baez, and particularly about his work with Derek and the Dominoes. He choked up when he talked about Clapton, who he said he loved like a brother.
One day while setting up equipment, our keyboardist Cribbs asked Gordon if he would show him the proper way to play the long piano coda in “Layla,” the song famous for Clapton and Duane Allman trading blues guitars with Gordon’s elegiac power chords behind. Everyone in the room stopped, becoming mesmerized by a piece of music heard on every rock radio station countless times over the past 35 years, now being played before their eyes. It was surreal watching Gordon do his thing but heartbreaking to watch him do it behind prison walls.
As a musician, it was entrancing to hear Gordon reminisce about his musical history. I asked him if I could write a piece about him for The Communicator, and he agreed. So for several days, we talked for hours about his life and music. When we were done, he told me how happy he was to participate in the music program. He became active in helping other musicians in the program and participated in dozens of shows for the always-grateful general prison population.
It’s been many years since I’ve seen Gordon. I had heard he had been in a facility in Vacaville but recently heard he may be back in San Luis Obispo. I can only hope he is well and still involved with what he does like no other, playing drums. My experience with Gordon showed again the power of music and how music can create an island of respite and deep connection even for those of us locked away in prison.
By Boston Woodard
*****
Boston Woodard is a prisoner/journalist serving his sentence in Susanville State Prison. Boston has written for the San Quentin News and the Soledad Star and edited The Communicator.
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