Vic Flick

Visible in this photograph of Flick. It is specified in the 2020 interview on his official Vox artist page.

Was the classic bond guitar riff already written when you went to record it or was it something inspired at the time, in the studio?

When the producers of the Bond films wanted a more dynamic theme for James Bond the commissioned composer, Monty Norman found a piece of music from an old show which John Barry arranged. The session was hurriedly organised and the urgency and energy of the finished product has carried it down through the last 50 plus years.

Why did you choose the AC15 for this?

Vox and Fender were doing a big promotion through Macari’s Musical exchange on London’s Charing Cross Road and the John Barry Seven, the Shadows and a couple of other groups were given amps and guitars. I got the Vox 15 which was a wonderful versatile amp. Unfortunately, to my dismay, it fell off a high stage, landed on a corner and completely disintegrated. I was given a Vox 30 to replace it.

(...) We read that on the original Bond theme, you played a Clifford Essex Paragon deluxe acoustic guitar with a DeArmond Pickup through the AC15! Most people would think that the guitar part was played on an electric guitar. Did you have to spend a lot of time getting the tone right?

The pick up on the DeArmond was fully adjustable from the neck to the bridge. So, with a Senior Service cigarette packet stuck under the pick-up close to the bridge, the type of strings, the way I played and the way the acoustics of CTS Studio worked all contributed to ‘the sound.’ The sound also had a lot to do with the open mike recording techniques that were often used in the 50s and 60s for film music. I have to say that most of the people who swear they know what happened and appear very knowledgeable about the recording scene back then weren’t even born. I leave it to the reader to decide who to believe.

Mentioned in the 2020 interview on Flick's official Vox artist page.

Vox and Fender were doing a big promotion through Macari’s Musical exchange on London’s Charing Cross Road and the John Barry Seven, the Shadows and a couple of other groups were given amps and guitars. I got the Vox 15 which was a wonderful versatile amp. Unfortunately, to my dismay, it fell off a high stage, landed on a corner and completely disintegrated. I was given a Vox 30 to replace it.

Mentioned and pictured in this April 2012 Vintage Guitar interview.

In the studio, I rarely changed volume, as the sound man had all his knobs adjusted for the mix. Mostly, I used a DeArmond pickup through a DeArmond pedal and then into a Fender Vibrolux amp. I purchased the Fender amp in ’62, just prior to the Bond recording that June. There’s a picture of the amp and an original Maestro Fuzz Tone pedal in my book. I did have a 15-watt Vox at the time, but it fell off a stage.