Guitarist Vic Flick dies

Victor Harold Flick died earlier this month on 14 November 2024. The guitarist, best known for playing the guitar riff in the James Bond movie theme, also had a long career in the world of chart music and television theme tunes.

He provided BBC music show Juke Box Jury with their theme ‘Hit and Miss’, was the leader of group The John Barry Seven and worked with artists including Tom Jones, Dusty Springfield, Nancy Sinatra, Cliff Richard, Shirley Bassey, Peter and Gordon and Paul McCartney (who also did a version of the Crossroads theme in the 70s). Vic performed on the chart-topping Downtown by Petula Clark; This track from Tony Hatch and Jackie Trent led Vic Flick to the door of the Crossroads Motel.

Tony, asked by producer Reg Watson to come up with a theme tune for the ATV Midland soap brought in Vic to play the lead sound on the track with a 12- string guitar. At a recording in a TV studio a suite of music for Crossroads was put together in an afternoon. The following year in 1965 it was decided to release the theme as a single, Vic returned once again to play on the Crossroads track with a 12- string guitar for the PYE Records release – only this time recorded in Stereo in PYE’s professional music studio at ATV House in London.

“The original theme was actually two tunes. Each one represented one of the families and these tunes could be played separately or, because they shared the same chord sequence, together in counterpoint with each other. Reg’s idea was that if the first scene of an episode featured the motel then he would use their theme and vice versa.” – Tony Hatch

The guitar part of the theme was called “Meg’s Theme” the other, an oboe, was “Kitty’s Theme” or later ‘Motel Theme’ and ‘Village Theme’ depending on where the action of an episode opened. The themes were named after original leading characters Meg Richardson (Noele Gordon) and Kitty Jarvis (Beryl Johnstone). The suite of music, which also included several ‘mood variations’, featured in Crossroads episodes from November 1964 through to March 1985.

Vic Flick was born on the 14th of May 1937 in Surrey. Flick died from complications of Alzheimer’s disease on 14 November 2024, at the age of 87.