By Bob Weinberg
Photography by Eduardo Schneider
More than 30 years have passed since the Groove Thangs first hooked South Florida audiences on “sugarcane soul, ” the band’s intoxicating blend of funk, soul, blues and Caribbean music. While the quintessential bar performers officially called it quits in the 1990s, two of its architects, guitarist “Bonefish Johnny” Stacey and bassist Carl “Kilmo” Pacillo, continue to make their presence heard and felt on the area music scene.
Stacey recently released Bonefish Johnny Sings the Blues, a collection of blues and soul tunes expertly played by an all-star cast of South Florida’s roots-music elite. And Pacillo has just opened the latest iteration of his Alligator Alley bar and music venue in Oakland Park.
While each musician is justifiably proud of his accomplishments outside Groove Thangs—a band started by Stacey with his younger brother, vocalist “Down Pat” Stacey—they recognize the special place the band occupies in the hearts of local music lovers. During a recent reunion show at Fort Lauderdale’s Trio Live, longtime fans packed the room and shouted along to Groove Thangs’ party anthems “Damn! Let’s Jam” and “Twist the Top Off.”
“We were totally into the science of being a bar band,” says Stacey. “Every bar that we went into, we wanted to turn it into an old blues club or an old disco.”
“There was something special musically, artistically, creatively and culturally, about that band, that body of material that Bonefish wrote,” says Pacillo. “You got 10 bands in New Orleans that play similar material 30 years later. But this was the ’80s! No one was doing it. We were ahead of our time.”
Truly, the industry didn’t know what to do with Groove Thangs. A deal with Epic Records fell through in 1989. Pacillo departed to pursue other opportunities, and rhythm personnel revolved. In 1991, a Miller Genuine Draft sponsorship left the band with little more than promo posters and cases of a beer they hated. Finally, Down Pat relocated to Columbia, South Carolina.
Stacey and Pacillo formed the Shack Daddys in 1993, aiming for a bluesier sound while retaining the fun and funk of Groove Thangs. “I didn’t know what I was going to do because I was so used to having Pat [out front],” Stacey says. “But Kilmo’s going, ‘You can sing and lead the shows.’”
Pacillo was right. The Shack Daddys became a local favorite, owing to Bonefish’s roots-melding original songs and topflight musicianship from area stalwarts such as keyboardist Bob Taylor, drummer Jeff Renza and guitarist Raiford Starke.
It was Starke who recruited Stacey and Pacillo to play behind singer and Seminole Chief Jim Billie. Both look back fondly on the experience, which led to the tribe’s financing the first Alligator Alley in Sunrise in 1999. The sprawling venue closed in early 2001, as the Seminoles prioritized the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood. Undeterred, Pacillo opened a smaller version of the club in a storefront on East Commercial Boulevard, which lasted nine years.
During that time, he developed a reputation for hearty bar fare—New Orleans classics such as gumbo and red beans shared the menu with Florida-centric cuisine such as sautéed alligator and alligator ribs. The latter attracted the attention of the Food Network’s Bobby Flay, who recorded a segment of his show at the Alley in 2004.
Pacillo briefly opened venues in FATVillage and downtown Hollywood before leaving the area for New Orleans two years ago. Returning to South Florida to tend to his elderly mother, he found a vacancy on East Oakland Park Boulevard and hung his sign. While he’s scaled back his menu, the Alley continues to serve a variety of craft beers and, naturally, live blues, roots and jazz. “I have a music habit I have to support,” he says, only half-jokingly. “I wish I could quit.”
Stacey, too, is a lifer. With its blue-tinted cover portrait—eyes squeezed shut, pouring his heart into a microphone—Bonefish Johnny Sings the Blues evokes classic blues LPs. But the music reflects his passions for a variety of styles, from funk to soul to swing.
He curated the musicians on the album with equal care. Next-generation guitar stars Albert Castiglia, JP Soars and Billy Vazquez lend their talents, as do longtime comrades Renza, Taylor and Starke; guitarists David Shelley and Jack Shawde; saxophonist Jeff Watkins; harmonica stalwart Cadillac Chuck; vocalist Nicole Yarling; and of course, Kilmo.
Stacey and Pacillo first met through Bonefish’s former wife, Dotty, who was waitressing at the Ancient Mariner, a floating restaurant docked on the New River in the 1980s. Pacillo was gigging there with a steel-pan player. Living just a few blocks from one another in downtown Fort Lauderdale, they later bonded over shared obsessions with blues, funk and tropicalia.
“Bonefish came out and jammed,” the bassist recalls. “I think we played [the 1950s Calypso tune] ‘Zombie Jamboree.’” He shakes his head and chuckles. “Who knows these tunes?”
Originally appeared in the Fall 2016 Issue.
