Raymond Robert Repp (September 17, 1942 – April 26, 2020) was an American singer-songwriter credited with introducing folk music into Catholic Masses with his 1965 album Mass for Young Americans, an album that formed the earliest stirrings of Contemporary Christian music. Biography Early life and education 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. Career 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. 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. 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. Death Repp died on April 26, 2020, after battling both lymphoma and metastatic melanoma, the latter of which of those two forms of cancer was the direct cause of his death. Theology Repp as one of the first artists to employ the idiom of popular 1960's folk music within Catholic liturgical music. While clearly not neglecting vertical theology in his compositions, Repp was a major proponent of horizontal theology (i.e. emphasis on social justice themes and 'love of neighbor') in Christian music. In a tribute to Repp by David Haas, another Catholic singer-songwriter, Repp is quoted as having said: "Latin philosophy and theology textbooks could hardly hold my attention from the books of my new heroes: Deikmann, Davis, Jungman.