Despite his short-lived career due to his premature death at the age of thirty-nine, using the stage name of António Variações, he became one of the most culturally significant performing artists of recent Portuguese history.

António Variações was born in Lugar do Pilar, in the small village of Fiscal (Amares, Braga), the fifth of ten children of Deolinda de Jesus and Jaime Ribeiro.

From 1964 to 1967, he served the compulsory army duty in Angola during the Portuguese Colonial War, returning home safe, but almost immediately departing to London, to work as a dishwasher at a school, for the duration of a year.

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).

In February 1981, he appeared with his band in a popular TV show presented by Júlio Isidro, called "Passeio dos Alegres", billed as "António e Variações" and performing two unreleased songs ("Toma o comprimido" and "Não me consumas").

The cover song of the untouchable fado caused controversy among many, but over time became accepted as a heartfelt tribute of Variações to Amália Rodrigues, to whom he dedicated his first LP, "Anjo da Guarda", released in 1983, to great critical and popular acclaim.

After a series of concerts, António returned to the studio and, between the 6 and 25 February 1984, recorded his second and final LP, entitled "Dar & Receber" (together with most of the Heróis do Mar line-up[1]), which would be released in May of the same year and received once again with great enthusiasm on all fronts (having in the torch song "Canção de Engate" one of the artist's biggest hits).

His former manager, Teresa Couto Pinto, has claimed that, prior to his death, Variações had received clinical test results performed in the United States confirming that he was indeed HIV-positive[citation needed].

This popular character of his words made it easy for most of his listeners to identify with the themes of the songs, which often speak about restlessness, feelings of escapism or the deceitful nature of love affairs.

A few of his songs have an autobiographical resonance (such as "Olhei P'ra Trás", where he describes the sorrowful but hopeful departure from his small village or "Deolinda de Jesus", dedicated to his mother).

This encounter with a different musical culture left a deep impression on him; a testament to this is the fact that his first song experiments were written in English (although he soon abandoned this approach, in search of a more authentic and personal style of writing, in Portuguese).

These were then kept for over ten years by David Ferreira at EMI-Valentim de Carvalho, until journalist Nuno Galopim took up the enterprise of listening to and transcribing them, which would become the beginning of the musical project known as Humanos.