REVIEW: Yma Sumac, The Ultimate Yma Sumac Collection (Capitol)
- Don Share
You probably can't pronounce her name, and you almost certainly won't be able to understand lyrics like "Taita Inty!! K'ontikipa unanchasccan...Unanchasccayquil!" But Yma Sumac, who was once a household name, may well be on her way to entering your threshold now.
Yma Sumac is a Peruvian of Inca descent who became a star in South America, and then was discovered by Americans in the '40's and '50's after a stunning debut at, of all places, the Hollywood Bowl. Hmm, Capitol Records, Hollywood Bowl...is there a Beatles connection here? No. Is it rock and roll?? Well, in the sense that, like all great rock music, this stuff can be used to induce feelings of euphoria while simultaneously irritating the neighbors...Possibly. Sumac's five-octave voice is indescribable, though the album notes on this wonderful compilation includes entertaining attempts; here's mine: imagine having a nightmare (or exotic sex dream, take your pick) in which a huge, brightly-colored South American bird trills mightily in your ear, and then you wake up next to a woman you met at a Tiki bar whom you met while discussing Ethel Merman. Ok, that sucks, but maybe you get the idea, just a bit.
There are high-pitched quaverings, low-throated grumblings, and everything in-between, some of it sounding evil, some of it sounding paradisiacal. And all this is accompanied by weird bongo/mango orchestral music with occasional side-vocals from her male-slave.
My own favorite is "Ataypura (High Andes)," which majestically swells into a frenzy of hollering the likes of which nobody on this continent can possibly hope to understand. Beginners, however, may prefer her great singles, "Babalu" and "Wimoweh" - this last known to some as "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." You can't miss with songs whose title translations indicate that they describe earthquakes, monkeys, the lure of unknown love, a virgin of the sun god, and - irresistably - "the forest creatures."
Among the most exotic, then, of exotica, these recordings of Yma Sumac (mostly arranged by her musicologist and husband, Moises Vivanco) are available again for everyone to discover. Sumac once joked that her real name was Amy Camus...so maybe she does have some of that Beatles mystique, after all!
