Raised by Benedictine nuns in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Raphael learned classical music and Gregorian chants during his solitary childhood. From the age of 13, he felt a strong connection to baroque music, particularly the works of Antonio Vivaldi, the 18th-century violinist and composer who was himself a Catholic monk. In reaction to his strict upbringing, however, Raphael plunged wholeheartedly into the late-'60s San Francisco scene. Yet even as he explored rock & roll and tribal music, he never lost his love of his classical roots and occasionally admitted to feeling like a reincarn...