Jim Gordon obituary

Accomplished rock drummer of the 1960s and 70s who played with George Harrison and Eric Clapton

Amid the freewheeling rock scene of the late 1960s and early 70s, the drummer Jim Gordon was one of a group of accomplished young American session musicians who emerged from the shadows of the recording studios to become public figures in their own right, thanks to the enthusiastic patronage of such superstars as George Harrison, Eric Clapton and John Lennon.

Gordon, who has died in a US prison aged 77, began his career with the Everly Brothers in 1964. By the time he crossed the Atlantic to contribute to Harrison’s All Things Must Pass, Clapton’s Layla and Lennon’s Power to the People, he had played on many hit records in the Los Angeles studios – including the Everlys’ Love Is Strange, Mason Williams’s Classical Gas, the Byrds’ Goin’ Back, Crosby, Stills and Nash’s Marrakesh Express and the Beach Boys’ album Pet Sounds.