At 06:12 PM 7/22/05 -0400, John Howell wrote:
>Watch it, Keith; you're giving away our age! Yes, I remember her
>well. Allegedly from Bolivia or some equally exotic place, the word
>on the street was that she was really from Brooklyn. And I thought
>it was more like a 5-octave range, but who's counting?! Yes, she had
>a viable and big baritone range and could take her voice up at least
>to Queen of the Night range, although I can't remember whether she
>made it into Mariah Carrey's top octave--might have. A lot of hype,
>but a startlingly unusual voice.
I'd forgotten -- yes, I heard recordings. And here's the bio from IMDB:
Dennis
Yma Sumac
Date of birth
10 September 1927
Ichocan, Peru
Birth name
Zoila Augusta Emperatriz Chavarri del Castillo
Nickname
The Peruvian Songbird
Mini biography
Known for her astonishing 4 1/2 octave vocal range, Yma Sumac (AKA Ima
or Imma Sumack) is from Ichocán, Peru, a town high in the Andes. From an
early age she performed in radio and movies and made recordings throughout
South America. She came to the United States in the 1940s and performed
with a small group of musicians and dancers. When she signed with Capitol
Records in 1950 her stage name's spelling was changed to the more exotic
"Yma Sumac." An urban legend that she is really "Amy Camus," a nice Jewish
girl from Brooklyn, originated in 1951 with a joke amoungst musicians
repeated in one of Walter Winchell's gossip columns. She has acted in
several films and stage shows, and continued to concertize into the 1990s.
She lives in Los Angeles and has been contemplating new releases of
recordings of her most recent concerts.
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