Happy Birthday, Yma Sumac!

Today would have been Yma Sumac's 94th birthday (if one is to believe varying accounts of her birth). Hailing from Peru, with the claim of being an Incan princess related to Atahualpa (the last sovereign emperor of the Inca Empire), Sumac moved to America in the 1940s and became a singing sensation in the world of "Exotica" music, a genre named after the 1957 Martin Denny album of the same title, popular during the 1950s to mid-1960s. Sumac possessed an impressive five-octave vocal range, able to sing as a low baritone or as a soprano. There was a great "lounge music" resurgence in the late 80's and early 90s, and along with it, a revival of Exotica, which is where I found her...

Happy birthday, Yma!

http://www.yma-sumac.com/