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Artist
Yma Súmac
12+ albums
50sfemale vocalistsPerumamboyma sumac
about
Yma Súmac (born in Callao, El Callao, Perú September 13, 1922), also earlier spelled Ymma Sumak (from Ima Shumaq, Quechua for "how beautiful!") or Imma Sumack, is a noted vocalist of Peruvian origin. In the 1950s, she was one of the most famous proponents of exotica music, and became an international success based on the merits of her wide-ranging voice, which ranges "well over three octaves" and was commonly claimed to span four and five. Yma Súmac was born on September 13, 1922 in Callao, El Callao, as Zoila Augusta Emperatriz Chávarri del Castillo. Other dates mentioned in her various biographies range from 1921 to 1929. Some sources claim that she was not born in Ichocán, but in a nearby village or possibly in Lima, and that her family owned a ranch in Ichocán where she spent most of her early life. It is also claimed that she is an Incan princess directly descended from Atahualpa. The story that she was actually born Amy Camus (Yma Sumac read backwards) in Brooklyn or Canada is a hoax. This reference asserts that she was known as Imma Sumack in recordings made before she went to the U.S.; Capitol Records changed the spelling to the more exotic "Yma Sumac". For a few months, in and around Capitol Records headquarters, it was rumored that Yma Sumac was actually a woman named Amy Camus who worked in the accounting department, but that was eventually disproved by Amy herself in her famous "I can't even sing" memo of August 1951. She first appeared on radio in 1942, and mar
