Goodbye to Vic Flick the guitarist of the James Bond soundtrack

Vic Flick, the English guitarist known for playing the “James Bond Theme”, died on November 14 at the age of 87. The news was shared on social media by his son Kevin.

“It is with great sadness that my mother – Vic’s wife Judith -, her grandson Tyler and I must announce that my father Vic Flick passed away peacefully last Thursday, ending his battle with Alzheimer’s,” the post read.

Flick was born in Surrey, England, in 1937. It was in 1962 that composer John Barry enlisted him to play Monty Norman’s “James Bond Theme”, which appeared in the first James Bond film, Dr. No. For his work he was paid a single fee of £6.

“I placed the DeArmond pickup close to the bridge,” he explained to Guitar Player in 2021, describing the song’s recording process. “I put a crushed cigarette pack under it to get it closer to the strings. This helped me get that round sound. The most important thing, sound-wise, was the Vox AC15 amplifier. I used it on tour. It never left me, until it fell three meters into a music pit and disintegrated. The guitar was picked up by the orchestra’s microphones, and it gave the guitar a mysterious and powerful sound sound created by us, up to a point, and it had a bite that I really liked.”

Flick has contributed to many other Bond soundtracks, including “From Russia With Love” and “Goldfinger,” and has also worked with the likes of Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Tom Jones, Dusty Springfield, the Beatles and more .

“I met Sir George Martin when he worked at EMI in Abbey Road,” Flick told Guitar Player. “He had a bit of a peculiar attitude, a bit of ‘I say, old man, let’s go’. He would ask the fixers, or contractors, to line up the session musicians. … Mostly, the Beatles if they stayed away, sitting at the table in the corner, unlike the session musicians who came and scattered everywhere. I did some special pieces, like the instrumental theme for ‘This Boy’ in A Hard Day’s Night, where I play mine. Fender Strat when Ringo walks along the river.”