Vic Flick, Guitarman

Introduction

Dear Reader,

You’re holding in your hands the autobiography of Vic Flick, one of the greatest studio musicians of a generation, if not of all time. This story is from the horse’s mouth and not second-hand opinions from speculators who were not there when these incredible events and recordings actually happened.

As recording studios and record companies began to dominate the entertainment industry, songs had to be recorded quickly, efficiently, perfectly - and with feeling. It is easy to see why a vocal group, or a single vocalist, required a band. But why did famous groups need to be augmented, or even replaced?

In the ‘50s and especially the ‘60s, when bands came to dominate the youth market, the ones who came to fame did so because they had the look and the sound. But performing well in a live situation does not necessarily make for efficient recording artists. For that reason, plus the fact that, especially in England, recording sessions were booked in three-hour segments (especially at the famous EMI Studios), generally from 10 a.m.-1 p.m., 2:30-5:30 p.m. and again from 7-10 p.m. Besides reasons of economy and efficiency, this also allowed session musicians to travel from studio to studio to studio, with time to set up their gear, be properly miked, break down their equipment and travel to the next session.

With only some exceptions, young performing bands were not generally able to churn out up to five songs, often previously unheard, in this three-hour time span. Hence, producers often called upon the studio musicians. Sometimes an entire band was replaced on record, and sometimes only certain musicians. This generally does not reflect upon our chart-topping heroes’ proficiency as musicians or performers, but only as recording artists.

Vic was one of a handful of first-call guitarists in London in the late ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s — an elite set including Big Jim Sullivan and Little Jimmy Page. Often, the guitarists would play in tandem, and sometimes as the sole guitarist, depending upon the arrangement.

Vic and I (and his lovely wife, Judy) have been friends for many years now, and I am humbled to write the introduction to this special and important book that has been in the making for so long. I had the pleasure and honor of playing on stage in Las Vegas with Vic, and words cannot describe the intensely sweet sounds of Vic’s guitar coming directly from the amplifier that was only yards away from me. I watched him play and heard the sounds live and first-hand, and it was only then that I really understood.

You are in for a great treat. You are about to read first-hand accounts of the sounds behind Swingin’ London, and first-hand accounts of encounters with some of the greatest British, American and world-wide recording artists that provided the sound-track for our generation. Don’t expect too much dish — as Vic, the consummate gentleman, has advised me: If they’re alive, take a dive. If they’re dead, go ahead! But don’t expect an overly technical and even dull story, either. This book is riveting and incredibly insightful. Suspend what you think you know and read the truth in Vic Flick’s incredible autobiography. I can promise you it will be like music.

Bob Rush

Bob Rush is the former musical director and bassist of a group called The Rip Chords, who had a huge U.S. hit record in 1964 with Hey Little Cobra. The original group disbanded and Bob organized its reformation with, amongst others, two of the three original members. His interest in the ‘60s music sparked our friendship years ago and has been a great encouragement to me during the writing process, and a great deal to do with having my Bond guitar exhibited in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum. He has since left the Rip Chords and continues to be a Doctor of Chiropractic Medicine in Philadelphia, PA, in the US. He resides in Bucks County, PA with his wife and children.

The Beginning

The year was 1937 with World War II just a fleeting two years away. A terrible late winter storm ravaged the southern counties of England. The winds roared and howled with unimaginable might. The rain attacked the roofs, washed down the windows and beat the very Earth itself with the sound of a thousand crazed drummers. Inside the small room the light from a dim lamp forced its way through the misted window to the turmoil outside. The window, misted from the two buckets of steaming hot water on the hard stone floor, barely kept the elements from the small room. The gaunt features of a Midwife were softened by the lamp’s orange glow — her starched cap shining white in contrast as she sat patiently by the humble bed. Waiting. Waiting. After what seemed hours, a legend was born.

Me!

Well, not quite. Actually, the morning of May 14th, 1937 was bright and sunny and I came screaming into the world with all the intent and purpose of one who was set to lead, or at least, make a lot of noise. My father, Harold, was a teacher, specializing in music and played the piano, and my mother, Mabel, was an accomplished singer. I fortunately carried their talents into the world. As you will have gathered from the rhetoric in the above paragraph, neither of them were writers. Still, I will try to defy genetics and share with you my story as a musician who had the good luck to make something of a name for himself in the years to come.

Before some fame and varying fortunes, I lived all my first eighteen years in Worcester Park, Surrey, England, and did all the things a boy was supposed to do — going to school, fighting, scrumping (purloining fruit from other peoples’ back yards), dating girls and, from the age of fourteen, playing guitar. Earlier, my father insisted that I learn a musical instrument so, from the ages of five to twelve, I had piano lessons, and on a couple of occasions, violin lessons. I didn’t take to the violin at all. This was possibly caused by the violin teacher who was at best a horrible person and at worst a dreadful teacher.

Even the violin teacher pales into insignificance compared to the experiences that I had from the age of two to seven, or maybe eight. Sometimes, following an air raid over London, my brother Alan and I would wake up on the floor of the hallway, outside the kitchen and dining room doors. That location surrounded by brick inner walls was deemed to be the safest and strongest place in the house for us to sleep. Consequently, we were awakened by parents and neighbors stepping over us holding slices of bread and cups of tea — always a cup of tea. It didn’t seem to matter if the German bombs had blown up the water mains, cut the electricity, broken the gas mains and smashed all the cups in the house, there was always the miracle of a ‘nice cup of tea.’ When the ‘all clear’ siren had sounded we would go outside and look at the piles of smoking rubble that yesterday were houses, our friends’ house. Perhaps a couple of ambulances parked alongside with maybe a few wardens picking through the rubble for signs of life. There was none. Not even the children I was supposed to go to school with that day.

The Government supplied us with a Morrison Shelter, a steel structure about three feet high, where the family could sleep under and run to when an air raid siren sounded. One night we were awakened from our sleep in this shelter by a stick of bombs dropping about our neighbourhood, and the resulting sound of splintering wood and shattering glass. When the ‘all clear’ sounded, we crept from our shelter to see the French Windows bowed in toward us and shards of glass, like darts, stuck in the mattress my father always placed facing the windows.

Bombs would shake the whole house. Ceilings would come down. Plates, cups and vases would fall from cupboards. It was like a continuous rumbling earthquake lasting for years — all with the background of anti-aircraft guns booming in the distance. The red glow of London burning in the far distance was a constant reminder of the conflict.

On the way to school I would find the spoils of war, remnants of the aerial dog fights between the Royal Air force and the Luftwaffa played out in the skies above London and its suburbs. Airman’s boots, one with a foot in it and the leg bone sticking from it, pieces of airplanes, a spattering of shell cases. What an education for a child. Our teachers made us put all our small finds in a big box for collection by the war effort. Even then, recycling was the thing to do. At the height of the blitz we were evacuated to areas outside London to avoid the bombs. My family was sent to an English south coast town called Lancing. Even there we were not safe, as the cowardly German pilots would drop any remaining bombs on whatever they thought was a town as they scuttled back to Germany.

With this continuing danger, we were transported back to our home. Again, a few months later, I was ‘evacuated’ to my aunt’s house about twenty miles west of London. At that time, Mr Hitler had developed the V2 rocket, a winged bomb with a large jet engine attached. These instruments of death were very erratic in flight with a tendency to wander miles from their intended destination, the center of London.

One sunny day my cousin and I were stood outside my aunt’s front gate when, sure enough, over the horizon came this dreadful weapon — heading straight for us. The rocket motor stopped its roar. The rocket now had to glide over a big field full of golden corn. With the thermals from the field, the rocket’s right wing lifted and it turned away from us to disappear over a stand of trees. I can remember seeing the bolts holding the thing together — words — German words — and the red hot tip of the rocket. The resulting blast as the rocket landed on a Military hospital seemed to crush our ribs and stomachs. God knows what it must have been like when one of those things landed really close to you.

Everyone was on a strict diet due to rationing. A family of four had to subsist on something like eight ounces of bacon for a month. My father bred rabbits in an effort to give us meat. A vegetable garden took the place of my father’s lawn. A chicken-wire enclosure at the bottom of our garden kept a couple of chickens and a few ducks, again for their meat and eggs. Candies were rationed, so we would look with longing at the rows of bottles in the Sweet Shop. Pig bins were supplied for any unused food to be saved. Pigs would eat anything — and the army needed bacon. Much to my father’s dismay, the decorative chains linking posts on our front garden were cut down and used for tanks or bullets or anything warlike.

After the war, things slowly settled down, and a hesitant normality reigned.

When I was fourteen, my father and a friend from a few houses up the street formed a band to play at local church and political functions. My brother played the bass on an old cello that just seemed to appear from nowhere and, if I was to be in the band, I had to find an instrument to play. A guitar was advertised for sale in the local newspaper shop. A deal was struck and as a result I became the proud owner of a Gibson Kalamazoo, a small-bodied acoustic guitar. I practiced the instrument until the tips of my fingers bled. I had to catch up with all the others who were, compared to me, accomplished musicians. Slowly I improved, and moved from studying the Eddie Lang guitar tutor, page one, to getting through ‘I’m in the Mood for Love’ with only a couple of mistakes. Of course, with the volume of the other instruments, my valiant efforts went unnoticed. I fixed a Tank Commander’s throat microphone to the machine head of my guitar and wired the cord into the back of my father’s trusty radio. It worked. Looking back, the sound was not quite what was expected from a guitar, but at least I could be heard over the rest of the band.

Alan and I listened to a lot of jazz recordings. We tried starting a collection of different bands and musicians but that idea fell by the wayside when the cost of the 78s became prohibitive. I remember Gene Krupa, Artie Shaw, Charlie Christian, Mick Mulligan. Jim Hall and Joe Pass were also great inspirations. In an interview, Jim Hall argued he was not a guitarist but a song writer. I don’t know any of his songs but they must be wonderful.

Tal Farlow is a great American guitarist who greatly influenced my playing and my desire to learn. His jazz lines, his chords and rhythmic comping all sustained my interest in the guitar when practice, which not only made perfect, but hurt and, dare I say it, became boring. Many years later Tal Farlow visited the UK for a few workshops and I was first in line for a seat. Sitting in the front row an Oriental gentleman sitting next to me asked to look at my camera. It was a good one and I proudly passed it to him. He was very interested and, I wrongly presumed, knowledgeable about cameras. After looking at the lense and thoroughly examining the camera, he handed it back to me. Later I met with and took photographs of Tal Farlow. Can you imagine my disappointment when the film was developed and was blank? The idiot Oriental had not replaced the lens correctly and the camera was rendered useless. I would have loved to have shared those pictures with you.

I left Kingston Grammar School in 1953 at the age of sixteen. Although scheduled to move into the ‘Sixth Form,’ one look at the academic requirements and the curriculum forced me out into the thriving work place. Barclays Bank welcomed me with open arms and, after nine months, those same arms threw me back into the thriving work place where I became a heating and ventilating technician. In my junior capacity this involved getting up at some ungodly hour, catching the first bus of the day and moving vast amounts of steel pipes, welding gear, dissolved acetylene and oxygen bottles around a wet, cold and muddy building site. These exertions prompted me to become a welder, which I became, and worked at the Fueling Depot of the Royal Navy in Rosyth, Scotland, for a company named Brightside Limited. Apart from drinking under age at the local Working Men’s Clubs, the Company’s name was the only bright thing about that little excursion. I then became the sing-along pianist on the nights the ‘paid band’ wasn’t there. Not allowed to take money, the top of the piano finished up lined with pints of the finest Scottish ale, ale I felt obligated to drink. Consequently, those evenings are now shrouded in mystery. As that fine actor, Richard Harris, is quoted as having said; ‘my drinking years were the most enjoyable I’ve known. Trouble is — I can’t remember any of them!’

After the welding job, (which I must admit, I did enjoy), came Decca Radar and Navigator, with me employed as a wireman. Simply put, a wireman wired. All I did was wire up the valve bases on Naval radar sets and pass them to the next person for him or her to wire up something else. I was happy as I could do this in my sleep, which most days, I needed!

One day, management decided to evaluate their work force and distributed forms to be filled in. I put down what education I had and my ambitions and returned the form. Next thing I knew, an army of white coats clutching clip boards descended on my work place. Questions about the answers I had given flowed freely from this gaggle of middle-management persons. It was decided that I should be a draughtsman and my workplace changed overnight from the work bench to a brightly lit room full of men bent double over drawing boards with pencils and rulers. I didn’t like it, but I was earning a pound a week more. All this time, I was playing gigs of varying sorts so requests from the section boss for me to start studying fell on stony ground.

Music Full Time

My first professional job on guitar was at a summer camp with a group of forward-looking musicians led by a musical maniac. This transition came about for me when I answered an advert in The Melody Maker for a guitar player at one of Butlins Holiday Camps — a kind of cold and wet Club Med with hard beds, bad food and warm beer. Les Clark was an extrovert character who played bass like a man possessed and ingested an amazing amount of Purple Hearts, Benzedrine and any other substance that would ‘keep him going.’ Les Clark interviewed and auditioned me over the phone by asking if I knew any tunes. I replied that I did, and reeled of a list of titles that naturally included ‘I’m in the Mood for Love’.

‘Great,’ Les Clark said. ‘See you at Skegness in April.’

I now had to give notice at my present job, a modifications draughtsman at Decca Radar and Navigator. Giving notice was made easier by the fact my boss and I were not on the best of terms. He had taken exception to me sleeping on my drawing board on a Monday morning after a particularly grueling Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday playing guitar at dances, weddings and parties. When I actually told my boss (I’ll always remember his name, Mr. Brautigan), he was, for the first time, speechless when I said I would be earning three times as much as a guitar player than I was as a draughtsman — and probably the amount he was earning after years of service at Decca. Of course, he could look forward to his pension as compensation.

Arriving at Butlins, I discovered I knew more tunes and more about music than any of the other musicians. Somehow, after a few rehearsals, Les Clark got this disparate bunch of people into some semblance of a band and our nightly performances began at the Rock and Calypso Ballroom. Billed as ‘Les Clark and his Musical Maniacs,’ we did some crazy things. I even learned I could play the guitar hanging upside-down by my legs behind an upright piano. These musical gymnastics took place when we did our twice-weekly ‘concert’ stint in the Camp Bar. Of course, the beer flowed and, maybe driven on by our exciting music, the crowd could get a bit rowdy. Once, whilst hanging upside down, I witnessed a man being hit on the head with a bar stool. The man collapsed in a heap, and whilst he was discreetly removed, the drinking and the music and my uncomfortable slant on life continued. We turned every tune we could think of into rock numbers — even ‘My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean.’ The kids loved it!

Occasionally, rival gangs from London would mistakenly book the same week for their holidays. This led to some pretty traumatic events that always seemed to happen in the Rock and Calypso Ballroom. One night a really serious fight started. The two warring factions seemed to roll across the seating in a mass of fists, swear words and blood. One luckless warrior was thrown through the air, upside down, cracking his nose and the front of his face on the edge of the stage, right in front of me. Up to that moment Les Clark had been shouting, ‘Keep playing! Keep playing!’ When the bits of bone and blood spattered me and my guitar, I was — in the words of the great prophet — ‘Out a’ there’. The band ran for the side of the stage heading for the safety of the dressing room — well — dressing box. For the security of our instruments between sessions, Butlins had supplied a small 6’ by 6’ box-type room. As small as it was, we were glad to hide there, listening to the bangs and crashes of the debacle taking place outside.

With occasional incidents (fortunately none as bad as the one I just described), the season came and went and I found myself back in London and on the dole. The few paying jobs I had were not enough to keep me in rent and food so I needed a little extra. My brother, Alan, played the tenor sax and violin and had the same desire to ‘turn pro,’ so we formed a band called The Vic Alan Quintet. We played a few gigs and did an audition for the Eric Winston Agency at the beginning of 1958. Alan had been a member of the RAF Dance Band based at Stanmore in the County of Middlesex and got the taste for the big band. So when an offer came from Sonny Swan, a famous dance band leader of the time, to join his sixteen-piece band in Bridlington (a northern beach side town), he took it. A few short days after he had signed the contract, Eric Winston ‘phoned and offered us the job as the Rock and Roll band in Butlins at Clacton. At the