James Beck Gordon (July 14, 1945 – March 13, 2023) was an American musician, songwriter, and convicted murderer. Gordon was a sessiondrummer in the late 1960s and 1970s and was the drummer in the blues rocksupergroupDerek and the Dominos.
In 1983, in a psychotic episode associated with undiagnosed schizophrenia, Gordon murdered his mother and was sentenced to 16 years to life in prison, remaining incarcerated until his death in 2023.
Gordon then played on Derek and the Dominos' 1970 double album, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs and also played with the band on subsequent U.S. and UK tours. The group split in spring 1971 before they finished recording their second album. In addition to his drumming, Gordon was credited with contributing the elegiac piano coda for the title track, "Layla". In later years, Whitlock claimed that the coda was not actually written by Gordon: "Jim took that piano melody from his ex-girlfriend Rita Coolidge. I know because in the D&B days I lived in John Garfield's old house in the Hollywood Hills and there was a guest house with an upright piano in it. Rita and Jim were up there in the guest house and invited me to join in on writing this song with them called "Time". (Her sister Priscilla wound up recording it with Booker T. Jones) Jim took the melody from Rita's song and didn't give her credit for writing it. Her boyfriend ripped her off".[3]Graham Nash (who later dated Coolidge) substantiated Whitlock's claim in his memoir.[4] "Time" was not released by Priscilla Coolidge and Booker T. until 1973, on their album Chronicles.[5]
Gordon developed schizophrenia and began to hear voices (including his mother's) which compelled him to starve himself and prevented him from sleeping, relaxing or playing drums.[7] His physicians misdiagnosed the problems and instead treated him for alcohol abuse.[citation needed]
While on tour with Joe Cocker in the early 1970s, Gordon reportedly punched his then-girlfriend Rita Coolidge in a hotel hallway, causing her to end their relationship.[8]
Murder of mother, conviction and incarceration[edit]
On June 3, 1983, Gordon attacked his 71-year-old widowed mother, Osa Marie (Beck) Gordon, with a hammer, then fatally stabbed her with a butcher knife, claiming that a voice told him to kill her.[6][9][10]
Only after his arrest for murder was Gordon properly diagnosed with schizophrenia. At his trial, the court accepted that he had acute schizophrenia, but he was not allowed to use an insanity defense because of changes to California law arising from the federal Insanity Defense Reform Act.[7]
On July 10, 1984, Gordon was sentenced to 16 years to life in prison.[11] He was first eligible for parole in 1991, but it was denied several times because he never attended a parole hearing.
In 2014, he declined to attend his hearing and was denied parole until at least 2018. A Los Angeles deputy district attorney stated at the hearing that Gordon was still "seriously psychologically incapacitated" and "a danger when he is not taking his medication".[12]
In November 2017, Gordon was rediagnosed with schizophrenia. On March 7, 2018, he was denied parole for the tenth time and was tentatively scheduled to become eligible again in March 2021.[13] At the time of his death in 2023, he was serving his sentence at the California Medical Facility, a medical and psychiatric prison in Vacaville, California.[14]
Gordon died in prison on March 13, 2023, at the age of 77. Two marriages, to singer Renee Armand and dancer Jill Barabe, both ended in divorce. He was survived by his daughter, Amy Gordon, who was born in 1968.[15]
^Getlen, Larry (2016-04-03). "Rita Coolidge was muse to rock icons — and this is how they treated her". New York Post. Retrieved 2016-04-04. They walked into the hallway, and something in Coolidge's mind told her this might be when Gordon would propose. As they got to the hallway, Coolidge slightly nervous in anticipatory delight, Gordon "hit me so hard that I was lifted off the floor and slammed against the wall on the other side of the hallway." As his fist met her eye, she "literally went flying" and was knocked unconscious. Then Gordon walked back into the room — alone — as if nothing had happened. The relationship was over, although Gordon was not removed from the tour — everyone worked to make sure she and Gordon were separated, she writes, and that she was safe.
