Valéria Fajardo was born on June 6th, 1957, in Petrópolis, a rural region of Rio De Janeiro State. A precocious prodigy from day one, Valéria wrote her first song at the age of 4. As her mother, Dona Marlene, tells it - hearing the tinkling of piano keys was not uncommon in the Fajardo household. But Antônio, Valéria’s father, was notoriously strict and forbade the children to touch any of his instruments. So on a day when Antonio was out and Dona Marlene heard notes trilling around the house, she rushed straight to the music room to catch the culprit. It was, of course, little Valéria, who, despite a potentially severe punishment for her actions, commanded "Listen to the song I'm writing, Mom!" That fact that 4-year old Valéria’s tinkling around on the forbidden piano demonstrated a natural ear for music comes as no surprise when you look at her family. Her paternalgrandfather played both the flute and the violin, and her father played guitar in addition to the aforementioned piano. Recognizing her latent skills, Dona Marlene paid for her to start piano lessons with Ângela Maria Rizzo - quite a different result than the punishment Valéria expected for flagrantly disobeying the rules. At age 6 Valéria's family moved to Brazil's newly built capital Brasília where her lessons continued with a new teacher, Maria da Glória. Valéria recalls beginning to write songs in a conscious and deliberate fashion at the age of 10, when she wrote Adolescente, inspired by a neighboring boy she was crushing hard on. Jumping forward to 1981, we find Valéria still residing in Brasília, performing as a backup vocalist for the singer-songwriter, Herberto Filho, son of noted journalist and writer, Herberto Salles. It was while touring Filho’s 1981 album Palladar that Valéria met pianist, composer, and arranger Darcy de Paulo, founder of PPA, an independent label dedicated to showcasing unsigned and new talent. He quickly convinced Valéria to come to Rio, record some of her songs, and release her debut 7" EP on PPA. To finance her trip to Rio, Valéria had to sell the most valuable thing she owned: her motorcycle, which her dad had helped her to purchase