Longtime local musician, Impacs founder Bobby Barnes dies

Bobby Barnes. Screenshot, 2013.

In the days before the British Invasion changed America’s rock ‘n’ roll landscape forever, the Impacs were the biggest band in Tampa Bay. And drummer Bobby Barnes laid down the beat for the electric guitar combo, from the first gigs in 1960 to the final show, in December 2024.

Barnes, 83, died Jan. 24 at Morton Plant Hospital, after surgery for throat cancer, the last surviving member from the Impacs’ golden era.

After winning a bay area battle of the bands at Joyland in 1961, the Impacs were the first rock ‘n’ roll group invited to perform at the St. Petersburg Coliseum.

For six more years, they barely stopped. Clubs, theaters, dances, wherever there was a paying audience.

Members came and went, but Bobby Barnes was always the backbone.

Although the Impacs performed all over Florida and the Southeast in the early 1960s, even backing Roy Orbison and Brenda Lee on a “Dick Clark Cavalcade of Stars” tour, they were the quintessential Florida band that almost made it.

The band had a unique sound, a blend of rhythm n’ blues and surf guitar music. A bit of rockabilly, the Ventures and the Bo Diddley beat. Barnes’ kinetic drumming was a big part of the dance appeal.

They could also deliver a teen-dream ballad when it was called for (1961’s “Forever and a Day,” on Largo-based “Impac Records”).

The raucous, Ray Charles-like “I’m Gonna Make You Cry” (Parkway Records, 1963) allegedly sold more than 200,000 copies. (The B-side, “Tears in My Heart,” was a 180-degree turn into post doo-wop American Graffiti music).

Between 1964 and ’65 the Impacs made five singles and two albums for Miami’s King Records.

In his book Florida’s Famous and Forgotten, author Kurt Curtis called the Impacs “One of the all-time great Florida rock bands.”

The Impacs’ popularity waned after the mid ‘60s, usurped by Tampa’s Tropics and Clearwater’s Roemans, according to Curtis.

Merging with a Virginia rock outfit called the Spinners, the Impacs – whose lead singer, by this time, was a shouting showman called Vic Waters – became a 12-piece, all-white “soul revue.” The high-energy band’s name was soon changed to Vic Waters and the Entertainers.

After becoming a top draw on the nightclub circuit, the group was disbanded as Waters left for greener pastures in the early 1970s.

It was 1983 when Barnes, fellow founding member Jay Lee Angello and other one-time players (including Waters) began putting on Impacs reunion concerts.

“Bobby was just a joy to sit with and talk about the old days, when they were really popular,” said Don Wilson, a guitarist who joined the Impacs in 2010. “He was quite a wild guy when he was younger.”

Barnes’ declining health brought about the end of the group, Wilson said.

One of Barnes’ last performances was at the St. Petersburg Coliseum, on the occasion of its 100^th anniversary in November, 2024.

“People ask me all the time, why are you still playing?” he’d said in a 2013 promotional video. “And the only reason is, because it’s still fun. And as long as it’s fun, and I can still make music and people like listening to it, I’m gonna keep playing.”