Jeff Hardy

The "first take" of the band's debut album featuring Thorogood's original three-piece - Thorogood on vocals, electric guitar, harmonica, Ron Smith on guitar and Jeff Simon on drums, the album features Thorogood's first incarnation of the then George Thorogood and The Delaware Destroyers, modeled on Hound Dog Taylor's format-two guitars and drums. The actual studio album that was later released in 1977 included bass player Bill Blough, who joined the band several months after the first raw sessions took place. The decision was made to overdub Bill onto the existing tracks for the studio release, and the chemistry was so strong, that Thorogood, Blough and Simon are still together in 2015.

This rare collection of all-star recordings from keyboardist Harris Simon features Michael Brecker at his very best! As a 21-year-old wunderkind, pianist-composer-arranger Harris Simon went into the studio in March of 1978 to record his first recording under his own name entitled "New York Connection" featuring an all-star cast including tenor sax titan Michael Brecker, Brazilian trumpeter Claudio Roditi, saxophonist-flutist Joe Farrell, bassist Mike Richmond, guitarist Bill Washer and Brazilian drummer Portinho. Two years later, Simon returned to the studio with essentially the same heavyweight crew to record Swish. Selections from both quintessential late '70s offerings, are now available in the compilation The "Mastery of Passion", represent a moment in time when jazz was crossing over to a wider audience.