Thank God it's Friday

And just remember:

Even if you had a lousy week, at least you didn't have Yma Sumac going postal on your ass.

She is Missed

From the official Yma Sumac website:

This month would have been Yma Sumac's 87th birthday. On her very last birthday, she was wearing a tiara and swathed in a long red scarf, and in full makeup.

She wasn't at all well, but she seemed to know it was her birthday. There were two cakes, her own music playing, flowers, food, champagne, a few dear friends, her favorite caregiver, and her assistant's beloved chihuahua's surrounding her bed. It was the most festive birthday she had had in a few decades...

...She used to look at gorgeous photos of herself and say, "Aye! I look beautiful there, no?"

Yes.

These two fabulous photos (courtesy of the ever-fabulous Damon Devine) are separated by 50 years, but the latter-day shot betrays no diminishing of glamour or presence; and, of course, La Sumac understood the value of a cheeky monkey. We miss you, Yma! Heaven's choir must be reeling from your high notes.

MISS YMA SUMAC

September 13, 1922 - November 1, 2008

What a Wild Duet

Peruvian songbird Yma Sumac and Hollywood bad boy John Derek: Ms. Sumac seems quite thrilled to be in the company of John's chiseled features and toned chest; and while we can't blame her, we're more enamored of her absolutely fabulous headgear.



From the DAMON DEVINE collection.

Icon

THANKS

Hell Hath No Fury

YMA SUMAC SLAPPING THE BEJESUS OUT OF HER MAID

Although we are still reeling from the death of Yma Sumac, we take comfort in knowing that, most likely, she went down fighting.

Miss Yma, We Love You

Yma Sumac, 'Peruvian Songbird' with Multi-Octave Range, Dies at 86

The singer with a persona matching her exotic voice became an international sensation in the 1950s.

by Dennis McLellan
Los Angeles Times, November 3, 2008

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 http://www.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.

Services will be private.

Rara Avis

Was the Queen of Exotica, Yma Sumac, born on September 10, 1922, as claimed by imdb.com, or September 13, 1922, as stated on her website? Like the Amy Camus enigma, some mysteries linger on.

We're inclined to go by the official version, of course, but we couldn't resist adding these images and the following video a few days early, anyway. Happy Birthday, Yma Sumac!