I should warn you that this is a bit long and rambling.  But there is a lot in here.

I suppose it all started back in 1968 when, as a child of 5, I was first exposed to Harry Hibbs through the TV show, "At the Caribou".  There was no doubt that there was something magical about  the show and the man behind that little red button accordion.

Then the First ARC album came out.  I remember vividly the scene at the Woolco store in Kitchener.  (it was at Fairview mall in Kitchener -- the only shopping mall in the region at the time -- and just a stone's throw from Cambridge, where there is a large population of folks from the rock.)  There was a display stand in the store where a record player was set up playing the album and folks were literally snapping up copies of the record as it was going out of style.  There are conflicting reports of how many units that first album sold but based on what I remember, I would tend to lean toward to higher end of the scale.

I remember how my folks were so impressed by what they heard and recognized the album cover as "the man with the hat and pipe who plays the accordion" and grabbed a copy of the album immediately.  Now I should point out at this point that we're not even from Newfoundland -- we're Polish.  In fact, one of the articles I recently read pointed that that Hibbs' music had a wide appeal include those from Europe.

Time passed and  I grew into adulthood.  (I dare say that a part of me never grew up.  My wife would agree) Those ARC releases became a part of my rather large and eclectic record collection -- everything from polkas (Chicago and Slovenian styles mainly) to new and classic country, glam rock and heavy metal (I'm a big Queen Fan) but the Hibbs albums always had a special place in my collection.

Then we go forward to 2003.  For reason I don't even remember, I found myself doing a google search for "Harry Hibbs" and came across several websites pointing to the web page at "www.harryhibbs.com."  However, I discovered that not only was this page not working, but the domain itself had been abandoned.  I tried contacting the few people in the web pages that existed at the time but the addresses were no longer valid.  Not wanting the domain to fall into the clutches of domain squatters, I registered it, thinking that I might, at some point, either put some kind of website together or, at the very least, be able to give it up to someone associated with Mr. Hibbs or the family.  

Now we get to Christmas of 2008.  I bought my wife an Ipod Touch for Christmas.  I wound up liking it so much, I bought one for myself.  (and I have never been anything even remotely close to being an Apple fanboy but this thing is really quite neat.)  Now it was time to load up some of favourite tunes on my shiny new toy.  Being too lazy to find and convert my old LPs, I decided to finally lay my hands on the Unidisc CD re-releases of the ARC albums or any of the other releases I could locate.  I knew I could get the Unidisc releases through iTunes, but I still prefer having something tangible that I can hold in my hands.  Besides, I would prefer to pay a few bucks extra and have the artwork and a proper CD that I can fall back on in case I lose my portable audio data.

Finding these CDs was harder than I thought.  I was able to find the CBC and Unidisc "Best of" discs, which at least gave me a start.  I started googling to see where else I might be able to find them.  Ultimately, I wound up at Jay Tucker's facebook group (petitioning to get Harry Hibbs a star on Canada's walk of fame) and I was amazed at the number of folks who share my affection for Harry Hibbs music.

This got me thinking about resurrecting the idea of putting some kind of web page together.  Now I'm not a web developer by any stretch of the imagination, but with Jay's encouragement, and lots of help from the google page creator, I've been able to start to put something together. 

My goal is to have something on-line that will serve as a lasting legacy to Harry Hibbs.  I don't know exactly how much material will ultimately live here, but at the very least, this can be a start.

Please feel free to contact me through the feedback page.  Any suggestions, ideas, postable material would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

      --Peter Karwowski

         Toronto, Ontario  Canada

         January 20, 2009