Michael Graham Vickers (born 18 April 1940) is an English musician who came to prominence as the guitarist, flautist, and saxophonist with the 1960s band Manfred Mann.
[1] Vickers originally played flute and saxophone, but with the increasing popularity of guitars in bands, it was decided that Manfred Mann should have a guitarist in their lineup.
[citation needed] His tough flute soloing on hard blues tracks, such as "Without You", prefigured the work of Ian Anderson with Jethro Tull five years later.
[citation needed] As the group were all multi-instrumentalists, multi-tracking was used to allow Vickers to perform on guitar and woodwind on the same recordings, while drummer Mike Hugg similarly doubled on vibraphone.
In some of the later hits, such as "Semi-Detached, Suburban Mr. James", he reproduced woodwind parts that had been performed on the original studio versions by his successor in Manfred Mann, Klaus Voormann.