小简介
1928年生于秘鲁安地斯山脉附近的小城市，拥有四个半八度的恐怖音域，1950年发行的第一张专辑Voice
of Xtabay在当年一炮而红，我至今也想不出来这些声音到底是如何从人类的喉咙唱出来，专辑的第8首歌曲"Chuncho"，Sumac试图模傲安地斯山境内野生动物的鸣叫声，曲末那段高音长鸣，足以直达所有听者骨髓深处，以她的段数，要唱莫札特的魔笛大概只需三成功力，即便要唱第五元素中Leeloo那段歌曲，只怕也非难事。
Yma Sumac的唱功，风格和声音都自成一格。她是用美声的声音来唱的，但她模仿动物声音却唯肖唯妙。她唱得很高，但她的中低音厚实。她唱的多是有南美风情的音乐（有的不能称之为歌曲，因为她的声音都和音乐溶成一体了）。她也能作曲，自言有四千多首作品，而她的唱片中很多作品都是她和她那时的丈夫合作的，但在唱片上作曲人的名字上却没有她。
从一九五零年出道，她只出过三张唱片（后来她的唱片公司把她以前的录音整理成五张ＣＤ）。自从她因为丈夫在事业上欺骗她而离婚后就没有再出唱片，但她到今天七十多岁了仍在登台演唱。
作为歌唱家， Yma Sumac可说是前无古人后无来者。特别的声音，特别的风格，特别的技巧，都是别人学不来的，也无人敢学。她的音乐不一定每个人都喜欢听，但不能否定她在音乐史的独特位置。
by Stephen Thomas Erlewine & Cub Koda
A singer with an amazing four-octave range, Yma Sumac was said to have been a descendant of Inca kings, an Incan princess that was one of the Golden Virgins. Her offbeat stylings became a phenomenon of early-'50s pop music. While her album covers took advantage of her strange costumes and voluptuous figure, rumors abounded that she was, in actuality, a housewife named Amy Camus. It mattered little because there has been no one like her before or since in the annals of popular music.
According to the Sumac legend, she was the sixth child of an Indian mother and an Indian/Spanish father, who raised her as a Quechuan. She began performing in local festivals before her family moved to Lima, Peru. Once she was in Lima, she became a member of the Compania Peruana de Arte, which was a collective of nearly 50 Indian singers, musicians, and dancers. Sumac married Moises Vivanco, the leader of the Compania, in 1942. Four years later, Vivanco, Sumac, and her cousin Colita Rivero formed the Inca Taqui Trio and moved to New York. By the end of the decade, they were performing in nightclubs throughout New York and playing radio and television programs, most notably Arthur Godfrey's TV show. The Trio also became a fixture on the Borscht Belt circuit and the Catskills.
Sumac was signed as a solo artist to Capitol Records in 1950, releasing her first album, the 10" Voice of the Xtabay, the same year. Voice of the Xtabay was released without much publicity, but it slowly became a hit and Capitol began pushing Sumac with a massive marketing campaign. In 1951, she made her Broadway debut in the musical Flahooley, which featured three songs written by Vivanco; the musical's lifespan was quite brief and it completed its run by the end of the year. Nevertheless, Sumac's career was ascending at a rapid rate, as she continued to release hit records and played sell-out concerts across the country, including one at the Hollywood Bowl and another at Carnegie Hall. She also toured Europe and South America, as well as Las Vegas nightclubs. In 1954, she appeared in a movie called Secret of the Incas, which starred Charlton Heston.
By the end of the '50s, Sumac's audience had begun to decline and she was no longer as hip as she was in the first half of the decade. Sensing the erosion of her popularity, Sumac retired in the early '60s, without leaving any word or her location. She performed a handful of unannounced concerts in the mid-'70s, and in 1987 she played New York's Ballroom nightclub for a total of three weeks; she also had a stint in a Los Angeles club that same year. She followed these shows with occasional concert dates around the world.
Though Sumac did not perform frequently in the '90s, she experienced a popular revival, as a cult of alternative music fans discovered the exotica records of the '50s. The ongoing interest in exotica and Sumac led to the CD release of her catalog in 1996.