Drums & Demons: The Tragic Journey of Jim Gordon - Hardcover

by Joel Selvin (Author)

The blazing rock opera of the greatest drummer of all-time, Jim Gordon, from the legendary Wrecking Crew to redefining rock on the Seventies' biggest hits and outrageous tours, and ultimately to the most shocking crime in rock history--a story of musical genius, uncontrollable madness, and the big fill

Jim Gordon was the greatest rock drummer of all-time. Just ask the world-famous musicians who played with him--John Lennon, George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Tom Petty, Frank Zappa, Steely Dan, Ringo Starr, Harry Nilsson, Joe Cocker, and many more. They knew him for his superior playing, extraordinary training and technique, preternatural intuition, perfect sense of time, and his big fill--the mathematically-precise clatter that exploded like detonating fireworks on his drum breaks. And as best-selling author and award-winning journalist Joel Selvin reveals, the story of Jim Gordon is the most brilliant, turbulent, and wrenching rock opera ever.

This riveting narrative follows Gordon as the very chemicals in his brain that gifted him also destroyed him. His head crowded with a hellish gang of voices screaming at him, demanding obedience, Gordon descended from the absolute heights of the rock world--playing with the most famous musicians of his generation--to working with a Santa Monica dive-bar band for $30 a night. And then he committed the most shocking crime in rock history.

With full cooperation from the late Gordon's family, and based on his trademark extensive, detailed research, Joel Selvin's account is at once an epic journey through an artist's monumental musical contributions, a rollicking history of rock drumming, and a terrifying downward spiral into unimaginable madness that Gordon fought a valiant but losing battle against. One of the great untold stories of rock is finally being told.

Author Biography

Joel Selvin 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--and published articles in Rolling Stone, the Los Angeles Times, Billboard, and Melody Maker. He has written liner notes for dozens of recorded albums and appeared in countless documentaries. 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.