Vic Flick – who died on 14 November, aged 87 – was not a widely known name. Yet as one of the UK’s most prolific session men of the ’60s, and beyond, every single one of us will have heard his work.
From Dusty Springfield’s I Only Want To Be With You to Tom Jones’s It’s Not Unusual, via The Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night film, Flick had a hand in many of the era’s stone-cold classics. And while he was reportedly only paid a £6 fee for his credit on Monty Norman’s James Bond Theme, he would dine out reputationally for the rest of his life on that suave guitar riff.
One of the golden generation of Surrey guitarists (albeit a few years senior than Clapton, Beck et al), Victor Harold Flick was born in May 1937. Always dedicated to his guitar playing, in one interview he recalled practising until the tips of his fingers bled on the Gibson Kalamazoo he bought at the age of 14.
He joined the John Barry Seven in the late ’50s, which ensured he was well placed when Barry was hired to rearrange Norman’s theme for 1962’s Dr No. Flick suggested that the instrumental should be dropped an octave, so creating the low-slung sound that Norman said captured “Bond’s sexiness, his mystery, his ruthlessness”.
Playing a ’39 Clifford Essex Paragon Deluxe archtop – and raising the guitar’s DeArmond pickup closer to the strings by means of a “crushed cigarette packet” – the rest came down to the attack of Flick’s right hand.
“It had an edge to it, sort of a dynamic sound,” Flick told Jon Burlingame for The Music Of James Bond book. “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.”
With Dr No grossing $6 million at the box office – and Flick’s barbed-wire jangle indelibly tied to Sean Connery’s secret agent – the session man found himself in high demand.
A run of Bond soundtracks logically followed, including Goldfinger and From Russia With Love, and while he once reflected that George Martin could be an impatient taskmaster (“He had a bit of an attitude, a bit of, ‘I say, old chap, come on’”), the Beatles producer turned to Flick for the Fabs’ debut feature film of 1964.
“Mostly, The Beatles kept apart, sitting at the table in the corner, unlike the session guys who would come in and spread themselves all over the place,” recalled Flick. “I did some special pieces, like the This Boy theme in A Hard Day’s Night, where I play my Fender Strat when Ringo is walking along the river.”
Drawing on his seemingly endless versatility, from the mid-’70s Flick went on to work on several movie soundtracks for Merchant Ivory, and also reconnected with Paul McCartney for the bassist’s 1977 Thrillington album.
A decade later, while working with Eric Clapton on another (ultimately halted) Bond soundtrack, he watched his own shot at stardom evaporate.
“After we finished the Licence To Kill soundtrack [1989],” said Flick in a 2001 interview with Guitar Player, “one of the suits said, ‘We’d like to sign you up to be a featured soloist.’ Off they went back to America with their briefcases. I waited and waited. I eventually phoned: ‘What’s happening about my being a star?’ ‘Sorry, Vic. That’s all off…’”
Yet 007 continued to cast a long (and welcome) shadow. In 1999, the guitarist was backed by the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra for the tribute album Bond Back In Action, and he moved with the times to work on the music for Electronic Arts’ 2005 video game, From Russia With Love.
However, it wasn’t until 2013 that Flick received perhaps his defining career accolade, when he was presented with the National Guitar Museum’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
In recent years, Flick had been living with Alzheimer’s disease, which claimed him at an LA care facility last month. But, as one of our last great sessioneers, Flick’s musical immortality has been secured by that enduring Bond riff, its enigmatic bite still carrying an evocative shiver of glamour and danger.
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