Yeah, old K's cost serious money. The good thing about buying one unheard is that you can always sell it for what you paid. We should make a list of good sounding recorded drums and cymbals. I'm gonna be thinking about that.
Jim Gordon has Passed On...
He was never released from custody after murdering his mother. He'll be remembered best for being the drummer with Derek and the Dominos, but he played with the Byrds, Beach Boys and others. I know that you're wearing black today @bdp24. Sad ending.
Showing 12 responses by bdp24
@atlantadrumguy: The new owner of the building didn’t list any cymbals, and didn’t mention any when I picked up the drums. Gordon sure had some good sounding ones; I think I read he played A. Zildjians. Have you had any Turkish Zildjians K’s? A lot of the BeBop Jazz guys played them in the 1950’s and 60’s. I bought a couple, but the ones I got didn’t sound so good. The Turkish K’s were completely hand made (in huts with dirt floors), and vary wildly in sound quality. I have a bunch of the current (USA) K’s, which I like a lot. And I have a bunch of the original Paiste 601’s (1960’s and 70’s), including a coupla Flat Rides (18" and 20") and pairs of Sound Edge hi-hats (14"). I have a 20" Bosphorus Traditional ride cymbal, which is Turkish K-like (Bosphorus are made in Turkey). Very thin, so you can crash it as well as ride. It makes a great "click" when played with the tip of the stick, which I love.
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Here’s what a 24" (by 14" deep) kick with 13 x 9 and 16 x 16 toms looks like. The (southpaw) drummer is playing a set of early-70’s Slingerland drums (love the dual set of bass drums spurs, standard on 24" Slingerlands), with a 14 x 6-1/2" chrome-over-brass Ludwig snare drum. Bonham’s first Ludwig set with a 24 was finished in green sparkle, and he always played a 14 x 6-1/2" metal (or amber Vistalite) Ludwig snare drum.
https://youtu.be/idUFG9RPswg?si=GRpNVxZcrFg0IXj8
For you fans of instrumental bands, this drummer replaced the band’s former drummer (Pete Curry), who left to join Los Straitjackets (but on bass, not drums).
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An afterthought: What I especially love in the playing of Jim Gordon and Johnny Barbata is---in addition to being very tasteful and musical, their drum parts being played in service to the song---the element of intelligence. Smart drumming? Yes, exactly. I can’t define what that is, but I know it when I hear it. I don’t think it’s a secret that the drummer is commonly the least intelligent musician in a band.
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@atlantadrumguy: The reason 24" Los Angeles-era Camco’s are more common than Oaklawn (Illinois) and Canute (Kansas)-era 24’s is that LA-era drumsets were made in the 1970’s, when 24’s were coming into favour by Rock drummers like Mitch Mitchell, Carmine Appice, John Bonham (on the first USA tour; he shortly thereafter played 26’s exclusively), Johnny Barbata (a fabulous drummer. The Turtles, CSN & Y, Jefferson Airplane and Starship, L.A. studios), and Dino Danelli (The Young Rascals). 24" kick drums had been favoured by Big Band drummers for years, players like Buddy Rich and Louie Bellson. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the Rock drummers who started playing 24’s were all very Jazz-influenced. By the way, Buddy particularly liked the playing of Barbata, following his career. Give a listen to his playing on The Turtles "Elenore", "Happy Together", and "She’d Rather Be With Me". Fantastic! Buddy also approved of the playing of Bobby Colomby (early-Blood, Sweat, & Tears). By the way, my AudiogoN handle includes "24" in honor of my love of that size bass drum. Drummers (at least those with knowledge of vintage drums) will know what "bdp" is used in honor of.
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@roxy54: If the Rock ’n’ Roll Hall Of Fame ever does a Derek & The Dominos display, I’d loan them the set. I didn’t manage to see Jim play live, but his playing in the videos I’ve seen is just phenomenal. When I recorded with Emitt Rhodes in his studio he told me Jim was the best musician he ever worked with.
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Congratulations @atlantadrumguy, you have a very desirable and cool drumset. I too have an Oaklawn (location of the original Camco factory) set in sizes 24/16/13/12 (in Jim’s natural walnut finish), but mine are actually one of Jim’s sets! When Jim was incarcerated he left the set in a storage facility on Ventura Blvd. in Studio City (not far from his house on the north side of the Hollywood Hills). In the early-90’s a new owner of the property found the drumset in a locker, and listed it in The Recyler, a Los Angeles buy/sell weekly paper. I drove over to the building (I lived 5 minutes away) and laid $875 in the owners hands. One unusual detail about the set is that the 24" bass drum has no internal reinforcing ring, the only Oaklawn-era Camco set I’ve seen that way. I also have another Oaklawn set in the same sizes (I own, collect, and play only 24" bass drums), but in Natural maple finish. They’re not from Jim’s collection.
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From what I’ve read, Jim’s drug use aggravated his mental illness, which had been long undiagnosed. According to Bobby Whitlock, Clapton and Jim did not get along, especially when they went on tour. After their first tour Whitlock remained in England (waiting for Clapton to come out of his own house---where he was shooting heroin---and start working on a second Derek & The Dominos album. When it bacame apparent to Bobby that that was not going to happen, he returned to the States, getting himself his own record deal.), living in one of Ringo’s houses. Bobby and Keith Moon became drinking buddies, but when asked about playing music with Moon Whitlock said no, it was Bobby’s style of drumming that he preferred. Bobby had started out as a drummer, and loved that Southern "feel", also heard in the playing of Roger Hawkins, the drummer of The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section/aka The Swampers.. To hear Roger’s drumming, listen to "Loan Me A Dime" by Boz Scaggs, Paul Simon’s There Goes Rhymin’ Simon album, or any of the Aretha Franklin and Wilson Pickett albums on Atlantic Records (Atlantic record producer Jerry Wexler took both to Muscle Shoals expressly to record with The Swampers). A master’s class in drumming! Did ya’ll know that Jim Gordon and Roger Hawkins were for a time the 2-drummer rhythm section (along with fellow Swamper David Hood on bass) of Traffic? Seeing Jim and Roger playing together? Daaaaamn! |
@noromance: Here’s more details about it: In the 1980’s, 90’s, and into the 2000’s there was a weekly buy & sell rag named The Recycler published in SoCal. It came out every Thursday morning, sold at convenience and liquor stores, and was full of everything you can think of that people were offering for sale. I like every other vintage drum collector/dealer and audiophile regularly checked it for bargains. One Thursday there was a new ad: "FOR SALE: A set of Camco drums, formerly owned by Jim Gordon." I don’t recall the exact price, but it was more than I was interested in paying. I immediately called the number, interested in learning how the seller knew the set had been Jim’s. I already knew it was possible, as not that many guys were playing Camco’s, the one’s who were being mostly professionals, studio and Jazz drummers in particular. And each drum was the size Jim preferred: 24 X 14 bass drum, 16 x 16 floor tom, and 13 X 9 and 12 X 8 mounted toms. The owner told me he bought the building in which Jim stored some of his equipment, and that the old owner had told him the provenance of the contents of each room in the building. The Camco drumset had been stored in Jim’s locker since he had been arrested in 1983 for murdering his mother. What real estate investor would think to concoct such a story?! He told me where the building was, and I was delighted to learn that location was right down Ventura Blvd. from my apartment in Sherman Oaks, in the San Fernando Valley of the L.A. area (Tom Petty, in "Free Fallin’": "And all the vampires, walkin’ through the valley, move West down, Ventura Blvd." The "vampires" were high school kids of the Goth persuasion, who could be seen walking home from school every weekday). The owner said he was at the building, and to come on down if I wanted. I was there ten minutes later, and looked over the set of Camco’s. One thing I saw convinced me that the set had indeed belonged to Gordon: Camco’s were known for their unique proprietary drum shell design and construction, with interior "retaining rings" unlike anyone else’s. Well, this bass drum had no retaining ring (the toms all did), and had never had one (if one had removed there would be visible evidence). Camco would have made a custom bass drum only for a Camco endorser like Jim (he was pictured in all their ads). And very few guys were playing 24" bass drums in the 1970’s (mostly Rockers like Mitch Mitchell, John Bonham, and Carmine Appice), that size having gone out of fashion when the Big Bands died (only Buddy Rich and Louie Bellson continued playing that size kick). 24" is my preferred size as well, all my sets having that size bass drum. Well yeah, I wanted the set! It took some doing, but I got it at a substantially reduced price. Jim’s stalker woman was VERY interested in obtaining the set, but finally gave up when it became evident that was never going to happen. Obviously one of my favorite vintage sets! (twenty of them, from the early-50’s through the early-70’s). Nobody had better sounding drums than Jim Gordon. He was a master at drumhead tuning/tensioning, damping of the heads (to get rid of excessive "ring"), cymbal selection (I’d love to get a hold of some of his Zildjians!), how to hit the heads to get the best sound, etc. And then there was his playing! He played "for the song", his parts increasing the musical quality of every song he played on. Jim’s stalker told me she had talked to Jim Keltner, who was very critical of Gordon. Professional jealousy? ;-) A few years later I saw a Recycler ad for ASC Tube Traps: 14 of them, sizes 9", 11", and 16". Ten bucks apiece! The seller had bought a house in Reseda (also mentioned in "Free Fallin’". Tom was a Valley Boy ;-), and found the Traps in the attic. Yeah, I bought them all. ;-) |
Damn. I just got home from a day out and about, and saw the heading of this post in my emails. I’m sure there will shortly be remembrances about Jim from Eric Clapton, Bobby Whitlock (organist/singer/songwriter of Derek & The Dominos, player and singer on Harrison’s All Things Must Pass, both of which feature Jim on drums as well as piano on the coda section of "Layla"), Hal Blaine (the two of them worked together in the L.A. recording studios), Steve Winwood (Jim was for a time drumming in Traffic), many others. To say Jim was a great drummer is a massive understatement. Whitlock actually considers Jim the best drummer Rock ’n’ Roll has produced. He’s certainly amongst the handful of greatest. Emitt Rhodes said to me that Jim was the best musician he ever worked with. Not just drummer, but musician. One reason for that is that Jim played drums as a musical instrument, not just a percussion one. Extremely musical, with impeccable taste. In the early-2000’s I was contacted by a woman who had become obsessed with Jim (what is it about being a murderer that attracts women? ;-) . She had an ongoing relationship with him by phone and mail, and even visited him at the California prison (Vacaville) in which he has been incarcerated since 1984 (39 years in prison; can you imagine?). She had learned I own one of Jim’s Camco drumsets, and wanted to know all about it (that is one drumset I will never sell). I made sure to not give her any information that might lead her to me ;-) . |