Vic Flick, Guitarist on the James Bond Theme Song, Dies at 87

Big Mongo

2024-11-19 17:58:56 UTC

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/music-news/vic-flick-dead-james-
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Vic Flick, Guitarist on the James Bond Theme Song, Dies at 87

The session musician also performed with The Beatles and played on hits
for Tom Jones, Petula Clark and Peter and Gordon.

By Mike Barnes

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November 19, 2024 9:01am

Vic Flick, the famed British session guitarist who picked out the twangy
riff for the James Bond theme song introduced to moviegoers on Dr. No, has
died. He was 87.

His death on Thursday after a battle with Alzheimer’s disease was
announced by his family on Facebook.

Flick also played on No. 1 hits for Peter and Gordon (“A World Without
Love”) and Petula Clark (“Downtown”); performed on Tom Jones’ “It’s Not
Unusual” and “Ringo’s Theme” (This Boy) for A Hard Day’s Night (1964); and
collaborated with the likes of Jimmy Page, George Martin, Herman’s
Hermits, Cliff Richard, Eric Clapton, Dusty Springfield and Engelbert
Humperdinck.

“He was a musician’s musician,” Justin Hayward of The Moody Blues wrote in
the foreword to Flick’s 2008 memoir, Vic Flick Guitarman: From James Bond
to The Beatles and Beyond.

“He always stood up to play! Yes, I know it sounds obvious — but you
couldn’t play ‘our’ music sitting down. The real guitar heroes always
stood.”

Flick had performed with John Barry in The John Barry Seven, and when the
composer was brought on to re-arrange Monty Norman’s original theme for
Dr. No (1962), Flick added a “heavy sound” using a Clifford Essex Paragon
De Luxe guitar.

“It had an edge to it, sort of a dynamic sound,” Flick recalled in Jon
Burlingame’s 2012 book, The Music of James Bond. “I overplayed it — leaned
into those thick low strings with the very hard plectrum, played it
slightly ahead of the beat, and it came out exciting, almost ‘attacking,’
which fit the James Bond image.”

Flick would perform on a half-dozen other 007 films, including on Shirley
Bassey’s theme for Goldfinger (1964).

Victor Harold Flick was born on May, 14, 1937, in Surrey, England. His
father taught music, and he started out on the piano. He switched to the
guitar to play in a band formed by his dad, eventually joined Bob Cort and
his skiffle group and met Barry for the first time when The John Barry
Seven accompanied Paul Anka on a European tour.

In a 2021 interview for Guitar Player magazine, Flick credited the sound
of his guitar on the Bond theme to the “plectrum I used and the guitar’s
strings. I placed the DeArmond pickup near the bridge. I put a crushed
cigarette packet underneath it to get it nearer the strings. That helped
to get that round sound. Most important, sound wise, was the Vox AC15
amplifier. I used it on tour. It wouldn’t let me down — until it fell
eight feet into a music pit and disintegrated.

"Also important was the way the guitar was recorded. It was picked up by
the mics for the orchestra, and it gave the guitar a mysterious, powerful
sound. It was a sound we created, to a certain extent, and it had a bite
that they loved.”

In 2013, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from The National Guitar
Museum.

Survivors include his wife, Judith; his son, Kevin; and his grandchild,
Tyler.

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