James Beck Gordon (born July 14, 1945) is an American musician and songwriter. Gordon was a popular session drummer in the late 1960s and 1970s and was the drummer in the blues rock supergroup Derek 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. As of 2023, he remains incarcerated at the California Medical Facility. Music career Gordon was raised in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles and attended Grant High School. He passed up a music scholarship to UCLA in order to begin his professional career in 1963, at age 17, backing the Everly Brothers. He went on to become one of the most sought-after recording session drummers in Los Angeles. The protégé of studio drummer Hal Blaine, Gordon performed on many notable recordings in the 1960s, including Pet Sounds, by the Beach Boys (1966); Gene Clark with the Gosdin Brothers, by Gene Clark (1967); The Notorious Byrd Brothers, by the Byrds (1968); and the hit "Classical Gas", by Mason Williams (1968). At the height of his career Gordon was reportedly so busy as a studio musician that he flew back to Los Angeles from Las Vegas every day to do two or three recording sessions and then returned in time to play the evening show at Caesars Palace. In 1969 and 1970 Gordon toured as part of the backing band for Delaney & Bonnie, which at the time included Eric Clapton. Clapton subsequently took over the group's rhythm section — Gordon (drummer), Carl Radle (bassist), Bobby Whitlock (keyboardist, singer, songwriter) — and they formed a new band, later called Derek and the Dominos. The band's first studio work was as the house band for George Harrison's three-disc set All Things Must Pass (1970). 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