Lasting Impressions is online.

My copy of Lasting Impressions has been played once... to record these files. I did have another copy but I gave that one away. The album is as clean as LP's get so i have applied no noise filtering at all. I may need a new needle for my turntable to get rid of the distortion in the higher frequencies.

Give It A Try is online (click on album pictures)

The Give It A Try recordings are decent, with very few pops and cracks, but there is some static in the background. My recording program has a bevy of tools and filters to reduce noise, but I need to learn how to use them. I've burned a CD with a straight recording, and now I'll try one with the white noise filter turned on and with the tracks normalized (for added volume). Again, the files are zipped to avoid the virus filters (virus scanners still work on them, so no worries :). The files from this site are virus free, recorded and encoded in Mac OS X.

AOR cont.

Here's in interesting tidbit about the history of AOR and the future of radio. The only connection to Deliverance here is the format of their Tightrope album, which mimics the AOR bands of the day. I'm also really interested if people are going to be willing to pay $120/yr(USD) for the XM-radio reception in their vehicles.

Lyrics & MP3's

I have a lyric page that I will continue to add too until it is finished. Words in [square brackets] are those words lost in the music that I cannot make out. If you know the offial words, please let me know and how you know! To access the page, click on the Deliverance Album collection picture. Click on it again to come back here.

To facilitate downloading through firewalls, web-filters, etc., zipped mp3 clips are available at their respective album's in the sidebar. Only song files from deleted records will be offered here.

AOR

While researching the band Deliverance, I came across a lot of references to AOR bands. This was an entirely new term to me, and had me confused for a while. Apparently Tightrope is considered an AOR record, Lasting impressions is borderline, and Give It A Try is of no interest to AOR lovers. Well, from the context I assumed that AOR would have something to do with the progressive rock and rock opera phenomenon, like YES and Boston. Well, I wasn't too far off. I just found a definition:

AOR is an abbreviation of Album Oriented Rock, originally an American FM radio format focusing on album tracks by rock music artists rather than singles releases.

In some markets the term AOR was re-positioned as Adult Oriented Rock, implying that 'adults' were more likely to buy albums rather than singles.

Some notable AOR bands:

• Boston
• Foreigner
• Journey
• REO Speedwagon
• Survivor
• Toto

encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com


I am sure that all three of the Deliverance albums listed above fit into this category, but acknowledge that Give It A Try may be too 70's mellow to be able to stand in the same class as the groups listed above.

Ken and Paul Janz 1987

I believe this was the birthday party of Leo Janz.
Special music provided by his sons and ex-Deliverance members, Ken and Paul Janz. Danny Janz was around, but not involved in this piece.

Ever since I attended Black Forest Academy in the late 70's, I have had this mild obsession with our local band, the European rock band Deliverance. The band has hung around in my mind like the ghost of a person taken too soon, by unexplained means, doomed to roam the earth until their vindication. Like Canada's Avro Arrow, a program nipped in the bud by paranoid governments. Like a scratch I can't itch, I continue to search for that elusive radio version of my favorite song by my favorite band, that for some reason has been shrouded in secrecy since their disbandment 25 years ago. Despite their very best efforts to the contrary*, this band has made a lasting impression on me, both with their stunning harmonies and talent, and through their continued devotion to the message they were trying to spread in the 70's.

Until the advent of the internet, the only trace of Deliverance I could find has been the delete bins of old record stores where the occasional Attic Records version of Tightrope or Atlantic's Lasting Impressions could be found, and the occasional person who was returning from Germany and had contact with the band members. Now there are a handful of websites that present a reasonably accurate history of the band, not totally accurate but better than nothing. The secrecy, I believe is due to two facts: one, the band no longer exists, and two there was a lawsuit which invalidated the licence of the group for radio play, thus ending all distribution. I am continually amazed that in this age of the internet that the music hasn't resurfaced, but all searches through Kazaa, GNU networks, Napster, etc lead to a dead-end. Why? Where is the music? What happened to the fans? Are the only fans friends of the group who, like me, feel like they're betraying a friendship by pirating and distributing these works? If a band is invalidated by law are their works still protected?

I am opening up this site to everyone who may have material and stories to share regarding the European band Deliverance. If you want to be a member of this blog so you can add entries, let me know in the comments, and I'll add you to the list. Please, I don't want anything from the metal band Deliverance, which emerged in the US a few years later. If you know if this other Deliverance had something to do with the demise of the former (namely - are they the plaintiffs in the lawsuit?) Please let us know!

For starters, I have the contents of a few web pages with fairly complete history's of the band. Soon I'll have scanned cover art of their four albums (yes, there's four! not three) and other tidbits. I am in the process of converting the three later albums to mp3's for my own use. If smell is the sense most closely linked to memory, music has to be the second, and I am ready for a trip to my past.


* Danny and Ken were asked to speak to each of the domitories of Black Forest Academy, to encourage us to NOT buy their newest album Tightrope, because it wasn't overtly Christian, and was not sanctioned by the Janz Team nor the BFA school board. They did however explain to us their target audience, and how this kind of music is the only way to get close to those people, and this was their ministry. Funny ... we couldn't listen to their music, but we attended the same church, they had their kids in our elementary school, and the drummer was their art teacher! Perhaps distributing albums at school (at first) wasn't such a good idea.
In retrospect there were issues we were shielded from, and the people in charge, had ample grounds for their cautious attitude. I am happy to see that everyone has turned out OK in the end.