Portuguese singer and songwriter Jorge Palma began in Lisbon, where he entered the world in 1950 and quickly displayed prodigious gifts. Piano studies occupied his earliest years, leading to an audition at the Portuguese National Conservatory when he reached eight. Regional competitions and performances filled his early teens, establishing him as a classical musician of considerable promise. At fifteen, however, his focus turned toward the guitar, which he taught himself while absorbing the rock currents then prevalent. Time spent in the band Sindikato preceded his move to a solo career. The first album, Nine Billion Names of God, was issued entirely in English and was soon followed by Com uma Viagem na Palma da Mão. International stages opened after the third release, 'Té Já, on which he appeared alongside Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Leonard Cohen, and other fellow singer-songwriters. Releases continued steadily through the seventies and into the eighties. The eighth album, Bairro do Amor, arrived in 1989 to widespread praise as one of the decade’s finest works and ushered in an extended recording hiatus. During that interval Palma resumed conservatory piano lessons, an act that rekindled his creative momentum. The 1991 album Só limited itself to voice and piano alone. He next assembled Palma’s Gang, a unit of Portuguese rock and fusion veterans, and documented their work on the 1993 live album Palma’s Gang ao Vivo no Johnny Guitar. Engagements remained frequent through the nineties and two-thousands, with particular commercial success attending the 2007 release Voo Nocturno.
