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António Joaquim Rodrigues Ribeiro, (December 3, 1944 – June 13, 1984) was a Portuguese singer and songwriter. Despite his short-lived career, due to his premature death at the age of thirty-nine, he would, under the stage name of António Variações, become one of the most culturally significant performing artists of recent Portuguese history. His recorded works blended contemporary music genres with traditional Portuguese rhythms and melodies, creating music which for many is symbolic of the liberalization that occurred in Portuguese society after the Carnation Revolution of 1974. The original and provocative nature of his
António Joaquim Rodrigues Ribeiro, (December 3, 1944 – June 13, 1984) was a Portuguese singer and songwriter. Despite his short-lived career, due to his premature death at the age of thirty-nine, he would, under the stage name of António Variações, become one of the most culturally significant performing artists of recent Portuguese history. His recorded works blended contemporary music genres with traditional Portuguese rhythms and melodies, creating music which for many is symbolic of the liberalization that occurred in Portuguese society after the Carnation Revolution of 1974. The original and provocative nature of his recorded works has led to him being widely recognized as one of the most innovative artists in the recent history of Portuguese popular music.
António Variações was born in Lugar do Pilar, a small village in Fiscal (Amares, Braga), the fifth of ten children of Deolinda de Jesus and Jaime Ribeiro. As a child, his love of music often took him away from his field work chores and towards the local folklore celebrations. He completed his basic education at the age of eleven and soon after took up his first job making small trinkets in the neighbouring village of Caldelas.
At the age of twelve, he moved to the capital, Lisbon, to work at an office. From 1964 to 1967, he served the compulsory army duty in Angola during the Portuguese Colonial War, returning home safe and sound, but almost immediately departing to London, to work as a dishwasher at a school, for the duration of a year. Returning once again to Portugal for a brief time in 1976, António Variações roamed to Amsterdam where he took up hairdressing, profession which he would continue to exert when returning to Lisbon in the following year, opening the first unisex salon in the country and afterwards a barber shop downtown (among his clients there would be several people from the music industry, who would help launch his career).
Parallel to this day job, he started working the local club scene at night, along with a group of musicians dubbed "Variações" (translated, "Variations", a word which suggested the diversity of the singer's influences, sound and style). His garish visuals and camp fashion accessories, uncommon for a man at the time in Portugal, soon started to become noticed.
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