Joel Selvin tackles the complicated life story of groundbreaking drummer turned convicted murderer
Diversion Books is set to publish Drums & Demons: The Tragic Journey of Jim Gordon by Joel Selvin on February 27th. Selvin’s riveting narrative follows the man who many consider the greatest rock drummer of all time, from his humble beginnings as a teenage touring musician to his many landmark accomplishments in the studio and on the road, through his downward spiral into mental illness, matricide and incarceration. With the cooperation of the late rock legend’s family, and based on his trademark extensive, detailed research, Selvin uncovers one of the darkest stories in popular music, further cementing his reputation as a master of rock noir.
“Jim wasn’t the beneficiary of much compassion during his life,” Selvin says, “but nobody knew what pain and struggle he went through fighting his mental illness.”
Born and raised in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, Jim Gordon got his start as a professional drummer touring with the Everly Brothers in the mid-1960s. His penchant for creative and astonishingly accurate musicianship earned him regular session work, joining the community retroactively referred to as The Wrecking Crew. His preternatural intuition and perfect sense of time can be heard on more than 30 Top 10 singles including several No. 1 hits including the Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations,” Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain” and “I Got You Babe” by Sonny & Cher. He also supplied the literal beat for “The Beat Goes On” by the latter. He has been immortalized on albums by George Harrison, John Lennon and the Byrds among dozens of other household name music acts. Gordon was notably the drummer for Derek and the Dominos and provided the piano coda for their evergreen anthem “Layla.” Joel Selvin details how Gordon didn’t merely keep time, but he was also instrumental in shaping compositions. Whether it was his Latin-influenced rhythms on “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number” by Steely Dan or his monumental drum break on the Incredible Bongo Band’s “Apache,” a staple of hip-hop from the genre’s inception, having been sampled on over 750 other records), he wasn’t just a player on hits, he made them hits.
Joel Selvin explores the mind of Jim Gordon and his long struggle with schizophrenia, which stayed undiagnosed for years while he self-medicated with alcohol and hard drugs while trying to hold his career together throughout the 1970s. Gordon’s head became crowded with a hellish gang of voices screaming at him, demanding obedience, eventually taking him from the absolute heights of the rock world—playing with the most famous musicians of his generation—to working in a Santa Monica dive-bar band for $30 a night. His illness came to a head in 1983 when he brutally murdered his own mother, leading to incarceration for the remainder of his life. Gordon passed away in March of 2023 at the age of 77. With the aid of first-hand accounts, medical records and court documents, Drums & Demons brings this horror to life.
Selvin is no stranger to the seedy underbelly of the music world. He tackled similar subject matter in Altamont: The Rolling Stones, the Hells Angels, and the Inside Story of Rock’s Darkest Day (2016), he followed New York gangsters in Here Comes The Night: The Dark Soul of Bert Berns and the Dirty Business of Rhythm and Blues (2014) and Peppermint Twist: The Mob, the Music, and the Most Famous Dance Club of the ‘60s (2012), and covered kidnap and murder in Hollywood Eden: Electric Guitars, Fast Cars, and the Myth of the California Paradise (2021).
Selvin is a San Francisco-based music critic and author known for his weekly column in the San Francisco Chronicle, which ran from 1972 to 2009. Selvin has written more than 20 books covering various aspects of pop music-including the No. 1 New York Times bestseller Red: My Uncensored Life in Rock with Sammy Hagar. His most recent books are Sly and the Family Stone: An Oral History and Hollywood Eden: Electric Guitars, Fast Cars and the Myth of the California Paradise.
