Jorge Palma - Early Life and Career

Early Life and Career

At the age of six, Palma learnt to play the piano and to read. When he was eight years old he performed his first piano audition in the Portuguese National Conservatory.

In 1963, aging 13, Palma finished second in a musical contest in Majorca, Spain. At the same time, he continued his studies, first at the Camões high school and next at a school in Abrantes. The next year, 1964, marked a turning point in Palma's musical style, after leaving his classical influences he started to play rock'n'roll and taught himself to play guitar.

In 1969, he joined the Hard rock band Sindikato while continuing his studies in the Faculty of Sciences at the University of Lisbon. Being in the band gave him the opportunity to play in the very first edition of the Vilar de Mouros Festival, in 1971. In that same year, aided by some friends, such as Rão Kyao, João Maló, Rui Cardoso and Vítor Mamede, he began to write lyrics and compose songs and in the end he recorded, with Sindikato, an album with a single and an album of covers.

In order to avoid conscription and the Portuguese Colonial War in Portugal's overseas territories in Africa, Jorge Palma dropped out of university and went to Denmark with his wife, Gisela Brande, where he lived from 1973 to 1974 as a political refugee. In Denmark, he got a job at a hotel and presented some of his musical works through radio broadcast. After the Carnation Revolution on 25 April 1974 in Lisbon, Jorge Palma returned home.