Biography[edit]
Early life and education[edit]
Repp was born in St. Louis, Missouri, to Walter and Rita Kempf Repp, the eldest of their nine children. He was educated in Catholic schools: Seven Holy Founders Elementary School, St. Louis Preparatory Seminary, Cardinal Glennon College, and Kenrick Seminary, with graduate studies at St. Paul's Seminary, Ottawa, Canada. Later he studied music and languages in Vienna, Austria.[1]
Career[edit]
After his 1965 album, he recorded 11 collections which have been translated into 28 languages, and won ASCAP's "Award for Special Contributions to the Field of Music" six times.[2] His songs include: The Best of Ray Repp Vol. 1 & 2 and Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow, all songs written from 1965–1985. Repp's music has been recorded by those outside the Catholic Church. Christian punk outfit Undercover and Christian rocker Phil Keaggy have covered Repp's work on their own discs.[3] He also recorded non-religious material. "Don't Go In the Street" and "Apple Pie," both from The Time Has Not Come True, featured sometimes humorous, prescient left-leaning social commentary.
Repp drew a measure of notoriety from the mainstream journalistic media in 1997 when he sued composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, asserting that Lloyd Webber had plagiarized portions of his "Phantom Song" from his own composition "Till You." Lloyd Webber, however, cross-litigated in counter-accusation that Repp had, in turn, plagiarized portions of "Till You" from "Close Every Door," from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Repp ultimately lost the case.[4]
Personal life[edit]
Repp was married to, and lived with, his husband of twenty years, Richard Alther, who made his own living as a writer and painter, in their homes in Southern California and Vermont.[7] Alther wrote The Decade of Blind Dates about his past relationships as a homosexual divorcee and his marriage to Repp.[8]
Works[edit]
Selected discography[edit]
Data from One Way Jesus Music (music from the Jesus Movement) website:[10]