Vic Flick, the famed British session musician who picked out the well-known jangly guitar motif on the James Bond theme tune, has died aged 87.
The musician’s son, Kevin Flick introduced his father died on 14 November, after having been identified with Alzheimer’s illness.
Born in Surrey in 1937, Flick had beforehand carried out with the composer John Barry within the John Barry Seven, when Barry was introduced in to rearrange Monty Norman’s theme for Dr No, the primary James Bond movie.
The theme tune was recorded in 1962; Flick performed the well-known riff on a 1939 English Clifford Essex Paragon Deluxe guitar plugged right into a Fender Vibrolux amplifier, which added a “heavy sound”. He was paid a one-off payment of £6.
“It had an edge to it, type of a dynamic sound,” Flick informed Jon Burlingame for his 2012 guide The Music of James Bond. “I overplayed it – leaned into these thick low strings with the very arduous plectrum, performed it barely forward of the beat, and it got here out thrilling, virtually ‘attacking’, which match the James Bond picture.”
In a 2021 interview with Guitar Participant journal, Flick mentioned he credited the “mysterious, highly effective sound” of the guitar within the Bond theme to the “plectrum I used and the guitar’s strings. I positioned the DeArmond pickup close to the bridge. I put a crushed cigarette packet beneath it to get it nearer the strings. That helped to get that spherical sound … it was a sound we created, to a sure extent, and it had a chew that they cherished.”
Flick would carry out on the soundtrack of a number of 007 movies, together with Shirley Bassey’s theme for the 1964 Bond movie Goldfinger.
He additionally performed on a whole lot of recordings, together with hits like Peter and Gordon’s A World With out Love, Petula Clark’s Downtown, Tom Jones’ It’s Not Uncommon and What’s New Pussycat?, Bee Gees’ Spicks and Specks, and Ringo’s Theme (This Boy) for the Beatles’ 1964 movie A Laborious Day’s Evening. Over time he labored with the likes of Jimmy Web page, George Martin, Cliff Richard, Eric Clapton, Nancy Sinatra and Dusty Springfield.
“He was a musician’s musician,” Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues wrote within the foreword to Flick’s 2008 memoir Vic Flick, Guitarman: From James Bond to The Beatles and Past. “He at all times stood as much as play! Sure, I do know it sounds apparent – however you couldn’t play ‘our’ music sitting down. The true guitar heroes at all times stood.”
In 2013, Flick obtained a lifetime achievement award from the Nationwide Guitar Museum.
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