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28 Apr 20 - 03:32 PM (#4049161) Subject: Obit: Ray Repp, folk mass songwriter(1942-2020 From: Joe Offer Ray Repp, of of the early English-language songwriters in the Catholic "folk Mass" movement, died on April 26, 2020 after battling both lymphoma and metastatic melanoma, the latter the cause of his death. His 1965 album Mass for Young Americans was an early source of music for popular three-chord "guitar Masses." I don't know what his "greatest hit" would be - probably "Here We Are," but I still know the lyrics to many of his songs. He often gets blamed for writing "Sons of God," but that was written by James Thiem. May he rest in peace. -Joe Offer- |
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29 Apr 20 - 06:58 AM (#4049286) Subject: RE: Obit: Ray Repp, folk mass songwriter (1942-2020) From: Phil Cooper Many of those songs got transferred to the Protestants, too. I remember playing Here we Are in the Luther League. I'm afraid that after the services when we got together with other Lutheran youth groups, I was more apt to play John Prine's Your Flag Decal Won't Get You in to Heaven Anymore. I'm not sure what that says about me. Anyway, sorry to hear he has passed. I remember a Catholic nun named Sister Josepha, in the Chicago area talked about the folk mass songs. She once said that you should sing along, if you said you had the voice of a frog, she said God gave you that voice, so he has to listen to it. Be well, Joe. |
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03 May 20 - 08:54 AM (#4050115) Subject: RE: Obit: Ray Repp, folk mass songwriter (1942-2020) From: Waddon Pete His folk Mass songs touched the lives of many people. My condolences to all those who enjoy his songs, his friends and family. RIP |
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03 May 20 - 05:33 PM (#4050192) Subject: RE: Obit: Ray Repp, folk mass songwriter (1942-2020) From: Joe Offer A tribute published 29 April 2020 in the Jesuit America Magazine Remembering Ray Repp, still calling the church to song by Roc O'Connor Ray Repp died on the Third Sunday of Easter. He was born at a time, 1942, and grew up in a place, St. Louis, where his nascent interests in theology, social justice, liturgy and the arts gave birth to song. He was there during a great transition between the Latin Mass and the early post-Vatican II liturgy. Ray stepped in, not simply to fill a gap, but to call the church to wake up and sing. We did. Some did, anyway. Ray was one among other Catholic composers in the United States who responded through music to the changes wrought by Vatican II during the late 1960s. Clarence Rivers, Joe Wise, Suzanne Toolan, Willard Jabusch, James Thiem, Peter Scholtes and others created songs the church could sing at liturgy. These songs had heart. They had soul. They radiated hope in bringing people together as one. They served the voice of the people in liturgy. Their songs shaped our prayer. But Ray Repp is rightly recognized as “the first” among these, the first, that is, to build a bridge to the post-Vatican II liturgy. Powerfully influenced by the folk music and vision of the world of his day, he helped the church in the United States sing joyfully about a God of love and “brotherhood,” to use the term of the times, and loneliness and hope and caring for one another; he sang of Jesus our brother. Ray was an artist. And he suffered the way artists do. Almost as quickly as his music took hold, however, he was gone from the scene. I talked with Ray only once at a National Association of Pastoral Musicians convention, perhaps in the early 1980s. He said he was hurt because he had been vilified for his music and because his songs had quickly been replaced by those of others. He could not figure out how to get a second chance to lead the way. His love of the arts endured. He appeared to delight in the most basic things in life as well as some of its finer things. He was so human to the very end. I played Ray’s songs as a Jesuit novice in the late 1960s. Some songs had a driving beat I could lean into—“Shout from the highest mountains!” Some were simple and compelling —“Peace I leave with you” or “Of My Hands I Give to You.” Others spoke to that deeper and unrecognized need to belong, to be part of something bigger— “Here We Are” or “To Be Alive.” At that time, I was inspired by his fundamentally optimistic view of the world—“Till All My People Are One.” Being alive meant standing with others to work for peace, to help the poor, to change the world. It meant striving together with hope in joyful song, shining in the sunlight of God’s love. I believe Ray’s lyrics ignited heart-embers in many who longed for God but felt empty or pushed away from God by church or family or both. Ray was a man of his time. Today I hail him as someone who shared his gifts and his songs with a nation and church in turmoil. Search out his songs online. He was all about animating, strengthening, inspiring and enriching the church. This is how I will remember him. He was Barnabas, “Son of Encouragement,” for the post-Vatican II church. Over the decades, he was maligned from many quarters. Now I hear that “retro Masses” have sprung up, singing his songs on a nostalgic road trip to “the way we were” but never were. The 1960s and early ’70s are gone, yet the divisions that appeared then still haunt us. We Boomers thought we would change the world, but what we are leaving behind is not unlike what we inherited—radical self-interest and malignant internecine conflict. Ray, along other composers then, addressed hymns and songs of encouragement to the women and men of their time—“Love one another!” “Make the world new!” Were we Boomers up to bearing the weight of that task? No more than Jesus’ disciples. No more than the church in the United States of the 1940s and ’50s. No more than the church today is with its host of parish-renewal programs, pushing Catholics to come alive, get involved, bring back the “nones” and live the Catholic dream. Ray exhorted the church in his own way to seek the reign of God. He sang about a future that collectively we were not equipped to serve and the God of love whose mercy we have been unwilling to share except behind our walls. Perhaps, Boomers might still learn. Perhaps Ray left hints for them—and everyone else—as did Clarence, Joe, Willard, James, Peter, Suzanne and other early composers. Didn’t Ray and his compatriots’ efforts to gladden hearts actually point to the sorrow they felt deep inside? Didn’t their attempts to direct our eyes toward a joyful oneness emerge from the same woundedness that even now fuels our divisions? Didn’t they raise up the hope of a world at peace in the face of a world threatened with destruction by nuclear war? Didn’t they raise up the hope of belonging, reflecting our own fears of abandonment and the painful isolation that sheltering in place has brought to the surface? Didn’t their hope come from a place of longing for something more, something divine? That’s where their music had to have to come from and where the work remains today: to invite people from all ideological camps to encounter the kenotic Christ, calling from the terrible and precious depths of the human heart. I celebrate the life of Ray Repp. A gifted, joyful, wounded Barnabas who offered his gifts to help a generation of Catholics step from a world we really didn’t understand into a world about which we have absolutely no clue. Thank you, Ray, for being who you were. A man of and for his times. Everybody sing, Allelu! Roc O’Connor, S.J., composer and writer in residence at the Sisters of St. Joseph convent, is sheltering in place and waiting in joyful hope with 17 other Jesuits in Milwaukee. Roc O'Connor was a member of the St. Louis Jesuits, who stopped performing together in 2019. |
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09 Apr 24 - 01:38 PM (#4200682) Subject: ADD: To Be Alive (Ray Repp) From: Joe Offer Somebody asked for sheet music for this song. I didn't find it, but here are the lyrics. TO BE ALIVE (AND FEELING FREE) (Ray Repp) To be alive and feeling free, And to have everyone in our family, To be alive in every way! Oh, how great it is to be alive! Every day there's newness, Something else to do. The dawn of life is upon us, So let the gladness ring through. To be alive and feeling free, And to have everyone in our family, To be alive in every way! Oh, how great it is to be alive! Wake up to a new sunshine; Darkness no longer stays. For the new generation Will light the world today. To be alive and feeling free, And to have everyone in our family, To be alive in every way! Oh, how great it is to be alive! Tell the whole population, The time has now arrived. We must learn the sensation That comes with being alive! To be alive and feeling free, And to have everyone in our family, To be alive in every way! Oh, how great it is to be alive! Ring the bell of new freedom, Teach your brother to live. For the real joy of living Is something we can now give! To be alive and feeling free, And to have everyone in our family, To be alive in every way! Oh, how great it is to be alive! To be alive and feeling free, And to have everyone in our family, To be alive in every way! Oh, how great it is to be alive! Source: https://namethathymn.com/hymn-lyrics/viewtopic.php?t=8014 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ztjDzmxdGk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxxRjgg_dfU Apparently, sheet music for this song is not available at Ray Repp's publisher, OCP. https://www.ocp.org/en-us/songs/66556/to-be-alive#more-details There are several Ray Repp songs listed at Hymnary.org, but not this one. https://hymnary.org/person/Repp_Ray As far as I can tell, it was in Hymnal for Young Christians, Volume II. I still have Volume 1, but I think I threw the second volume out in the 1980s because I never used it and didn't learn any of the songs. |
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09 Apr 24 - 02:53 PM (#4200688) Subject: RE: Obit: Ray Repp, folk mass songwriter (1942-2020) From: cnd Joe, this is not strictly about Ray Repp, but you may be interested in an album I bought several years ago which seems to fit the idea of his work: Rejoice! Music for the Worship of God in the Twentieth Century I found several various books and albums confirming F.E.L. holds the copyright to the song, including: - Sing praise! : sing praise to God with Ray Repp : [guitar and choir ed.] (this would be the ultimate source of sheet music) - More children's liturgies by Bruck, Maria (which confirms your note above regarding Hymnal For Young Christians) - Ray Repp - Come Alive - Ray Repp - Sing Praise |