Yma Sumac, 'Peruvian songbird' with multi-octave range, dies at 86
Bursting onto the American music scene after signing with Capitol
Records in 1950, the raven-haired Sumac was known as the "Nightingale
of the Andes," the "Peruvian Songbird" and a "singing marvel" with a
4 1/2-octave (she said five-octave) voice.
The singer, with a persona matching her exotic voice, became an
international sensation in the 1950s.
Yma Sumac, the Peruvian-born singer whose spectacular multi-octave
vocal range and exotic persona made her an international sensation in
the 1950s, has died. She was 86.
Sumac, who was diagnosed with colon cancer in February, died Saturday
in an assisted living facility in Silver Lake, said Damon Devine, her
personal assistant and close friend.
Bursting onto the American music scene after signing with Capitol
Records in 1950, the raven-haired Sumac was known as the "Nightingale
of the Andes," the "Peruvian Songbird" and a "singing marvel" with a
4 1/2 -octave (she said five-octave) voice.
"She is five singers in one," boasted Moises Vivanco, her composer-
arranger husband, in a 1951 interview with the Associated Press.
"Never in 2,000 years has there been another voice like hers."
After Sumac performed at the Shrine Auditorium with a company of
dancers, drummers and musicians in 1955, a Los Angeles Times writer
observed: "She warbles like a bird in the uppermost regions, hoots
like an owl in the lowest registers, produces bell-like coloratura
passages one minute, and exotic, dusky contralto tones the next."
Sumac's first album for Capitol, "Voice of the Xtabay," soared to the
top of the LP charts. A handful of other albums followed during the
`50s.
With her exotic beauty, elaborate costumes and singing voice that
could imitate the cries of birds and wild animals, the woman who
claimed to be a descendant of an ancient Incan emperor offered
Eisenhower-era audiences something unique.
During her 1950s heyday, Sumac sang at the Hollywood Bowl, Carnegie
Hall and Royal Albert Hall. She reportedly made $25,000 a week in Las
Vegas and turned down offers to sing with New York's Metropolitan
Opera.
She was featured in the 1951 Broadway musical "Flahooley" and
appeared in the films "Secret of the Incas" in 1954 and "Omar Khayyam" in
1957.
Although details of her birth date and early life vary widely, Devine
said Sumac was born Zoila Augusta Emperatriz Chavarri del Castillo in
Cajamarca, Peru, on Sept. 13, 1922.
She later said she began singing when she was about 9.
After joining Vivanco's large group of native singers, dancers and
musicians, she made her radio debut in 1942; she and Vivanco were
married the same year.
In Argentina in 1943, she and Vivanco's group recorded a series of
Peruvian folk songs. By then, she was known professionally as Imma
Sumack (Capitol Records later changed the spelling).
In 1946, she and her husband moved to New York City, where they
performed as the Inca Taky Trio, with Vivanco on guitar, Sumac
singing soprano and her cousin, Cholita Rivero, singing contralto and
dancing.
After making her name as a solo artist, Sumac toured around the world
for several years in the `60s, but her popularity in America had
waned by then.
In 1971, she recorded a psychedelic rock album that was not widely
released, "Miracles," and "semi-retired" to Peru later in the decade
-- at least that's what she always said.
"That's the legend that she stuck with all through these decades,"
Devine, who runs the Sumac website yma-sumac.com, told The Times
shortly before Sumac's death. "She didn't want people to know she was
here and not working. The story was good for her. She's a very
eccentric woman. . . . Her whole career and life is based on her
mystery and so the facts and fiction is a fine line with her." Sumac,
however, did return to performing in 1984 at the Vine Street Bar &
Grill and the Cinegrill in Hollywood. In the early `90s, she toured
in Europe and continued to perform until 1997.
"The younger generation loves the music, loves Yma," Sumac told the
Tampa Tribune in 1996. "The new generation told me many times: 'Miss
Yma, we love you. Your music is something. It's out of this world.' "
Sumac, who was divorced and remarried to Vivanco in the late `50s and
divorced from him again in 1965, is survived by their son, Charles,
who lives in Europe, and three sisters, who live in Peru.
