COMPOSERS: Yma Sumac
LABELS: Retrospective
WORKS: The Peruvian Songbird
PERFORMER: Yma Sumac (voice) etc
CATALOGUE NO: RTR 4156
Complete with suitably cheesy, but surprisingly informative sleeve notes, The Peruvian Songbird includes 27 tracks from the peak years of the late Yma Sumac.
As cash-ins go, it’s surprisingly good, excluding her 1971 psychedelic rock album Miracles, but including two early recordings made in Argentina before she began casting tropical spells on the US during the first half of the 1950s.
Whatever her hotly disputed vocal range (nearly five octaves), Sumac was a hugely imaginative and versatile singer. Jon Lusk