By Jon Wilson
Times Staff Writer, March 12, 1993
red me to death,
but I knew something was going on." Barnes, whose Uncle Chuck Foster started him on the drums in Savannah,
GA.,
at age 3, already had an edgy 4\4 beat throbbing in his soul. And he had a
notion that polite music wouldn’t ever talk to him much. "I could feel the gears changing," says Barnes "so long Ames
Brothers, hello honky-tonk." By 1960, having graduated from Benedictine
Military School and having decided against going to The Citadel, Barnes was back
in St. Petersburg. He and some pals developed their own wrinkles on the new beat and, fueled by
uncommon commitment, took their dreams to the top of the mid-1960s music indus The Impacs from St. Petersburg toured with Dick Clark, cut records on such
national labels as Cameo/Parkway and King , and traded notes with some of rock
'n' roll’s best: Roy Orbison, Gene Pitney, Brenda Lee, Tommy Roe, Ray Stevens
and the Dovells. The Impacs never had a top 10 record, but they came close with
I'm Gonna
Make You Cry in 1963. They barley missed the fame when they couldn’t agree
on a deal with Parkway. But a generation after touching the big time, Barnes is still happily playing
rock 'n' roll in his home town. His band is still called the Impacs, and he is
still producing shows, like tonight’s Joker Dance at the Coliseum. Several of
the Impacs' early members are scheduled to play, as are several other musicians
with roots in the Tampa Bay area. Barnes came up with the Joker Dance designation because of the
mystique of
the name. The original was a weekly "in" happening for St. Petersburg
teens in the button-down-and-Madras era of the early `60s. Organized by some St. Petersburg Junior College students, the original Jokers
Club parties took place at a clubhouse near Lake Maggiore. Eventually, the late
Robert "Big Moose" Vosburg - who died last month and for whom tonight’s
dance is dedicated - carried them on the Italian- American Club on 37th Street
S. near the National Guard Armory. It was the Joker Dance that gave the Impacs one of their first stages.
The group built a following around town and, pretty quickly, the state. With
an eco chamber projecting a startling recording studio flavor, the
early Impacs
used guitar, bass, drums and vocals to meld Savannah/Charleston "beach
music" with the rockabilly sound prevalent in Florida during the late
1950`s and early `60s. The result was tight, driving music that made dancers out of
plastered-to-the-wall gawkers. "We never got away from the guitar band. I
didn't want the
horn-band-sound," said Barnes , who remembers drummers in some established
"polite music" bands laughing at him because of his deceptively simple
style. It was compelling, and it worked. "Bobby was the
grove master," says Mark Holly, a St. Petersburg
native who played with the Impacs as Chuck Kaniss and wrote Lost Love. He
later changed his name. "Listen to Bobby play the drums today, it's the same thing. He's not
fancy, but he lays it down. He did the same thing for the Impacs in a very
quiet, forceful way. He was the discipline, the leader of the band. He called
the rehearsal times and picked the order of the tunes. "At various times during its heyday from 1960-67, the Impacs had 16 musicians
join and leave the group, according to St. Petersburg music historian Kurt
Curtis. Perhaps the classic version consisted of Barnes, Lead guitarist Jay Angello
Jr. (who sometimes wore a black glove while playing his double-necked guitar),
bassist Tony Brown, vocalist and guitarist Kaniss, vocalist Vic Waters (whom
Barnes knew at Benedictine). Jay Angello Sr. , who worked at Walker Ford on
Treasure Island, was the business manager and the real force behind the band,
says Barnes. Still , Barnes had his say on picking personnel.. In a story the bass player
verifies, Jay Sr. didn't want to keep Tony Brown, thinking Brown was not ready.
"I could play Walk, Don’t Run, but nothing else," says
Brown. Barnes was supposed to break the news but didn't, knowing Brown had
stayed up 48 hours straight to learn all the Impacs songs. "We had this job at the American Legion Hall on Madera Beach and here
comes Tony, driving up in his 55 Ford. Big Jay looks at me sideways and says,
`You didn't tell him, did you?' Well, I liked Tony. He played simple but
solid. "The group got its first break in the summer of `61, winning a battle of the
bands at Joyland over such local groups as the Saints and the Cascades. After
that, bookings jumped. "Our mindset was that we were going to make our
living playing music. From the start , we were thinking a major record
deal," said Barnes. Says Holly: "It was so exciting to me to find somebody else willing to
put in 110 percent every day. We worked five hours a day for six months before
we went out and played... and when we did, we were polished, rehearsed,
ready-Teddy rock-n-roll band. "They turned out to be, says historian Curtis, "one of the all-time great
Florida rock bands. "By 1963, the group was playing around the East and Midwest in front of huge
crowds. It recorded I'm Gonna Make You Cry on the Parkway label, which
had featured stars such as Chubby Checker and the Dovells. Parkway was promising
big things for the Impacs. But, as is the nature of big-time
compa
nies, Parkway wanted plenty in return.
"They wanted 50 percent of everything. We'd have no say in anything.
Take it or leave it," says Barnes. He and Angello Sr. decided to leave it.
Parkway pulled back its distribution effort on "I'm Gonna Make You Cry.
Barnes says the record still sold 200,000 copies and would have made the
national Top 40 if the record company had stayed behind it "When it got down to principal , I didn't mind sharing , but I didn't
want to give other people that control over my life. It cost me fame but it
didn't cost me my peace of mind," says Barnes, now 50. "I still don't
have any regrets. It was me and the Angellos and Tony, and we did it our way,
and our way was not selling our a---s. We'd rather take less and worry about our
own fame. "The Impacs continued to tour and record, playing before appreciative
audiences and making a good living. In 1967, they merged with a group called The
Spinners and became the Entertainers. Barnes left the group in 1970, after a
particularly tough gig in Boston. "I got so burned out on the whole thing ,
I didn't even listen to the radio for two years," says Barnes. He started a carpet and upholstery cleaning business, but after a while, he
revived the Impacs, started producing sock hops and continued the recurring
theme of his life; making music his way. Sometimes independence brings unexpected rewards. Chuck Berry, the grand old
rocker himself, liked Barnes' style enough to offer a rare salute. Berry is notoriously difficult to work with, even -as documented in the movie
Hail Hail Rock'n' Roll- lecturing the Rolling Stones' Keith Richards
during a session. Bruce Sringsteen, has written about his own difficult gig
backing up Berry. But when Berry played the Bayfront Center two years ago and needed a
back-up-band, Barnes signed on. He watched and studied the Maybellene man's
videos and learned his body language. For instance, when Berry brought down his
right leg , slamming his right heel against his left, that was the sign to stop
playing; swinging the guitar neck forward meant to start again. "I told him, I got you figured out," Barnes says. "He just
raised an eye brow. "Barnes never missed a Berry cue, and when it was all over, the guitar man
blew the drummer a kiss. You can see it on the video. From one pro to another, helping keep the dream alive....