Guitarist Vick Flick dies aged 87 – He worked with James Bond theme & The Beatles. The Famed session musician, who also performed with Tom Jones, Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton, died after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.
Vic Flick, the famed British session musician who picked out the famous jangly guitar motif on the James Bond theme song, has died aged 87.
Guitarist Vick Flick dies aged 87
Flick would perform on the soundtrack of several 007 films, including Shirley Bassey’s theme for the 1964 Bond film Goldfinger.
The musician’s son, Kevin Flick announced his father died on 14 November, after having been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.
He worked on the James Bond theme
Born in Surrey in 1937, he worked on the James Bond theme. Flick had previously performed with the composer John Barry in the John Barry Seven, when Barry was brought in to rearrange Monty Norman’s theme for Dr No, the first James Bond film.
Vic Flick, guitarist on the James Bond theme dies aged 87
The theme song was recorded in 1962; Flick played the famous riff on a 1939 English Clifford Essex Paragon Deluxe guitar plugged into a Fender Vibrolux amplifier, which added a “heavy sound”. He was paid a one-off fee of £6.
“It had an edge to it, sort of a dynamic sound,” Flick told Jon Burlingame for his 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.”
In 2013, Flick received a lifetime achievement award from the National Guitar Museum.
In Pictures – The life of Vik Flick
