Henry Anthony George Spinetti was born on 31 March 1951 in Cwm, a small village near Ebbw Vale in what was then Monmouthshire, South Wales. He is the younger brother of the Welsh actor Victor Spinetti, best known for his roles alongside The Beatles in A Hard Day's Night, Help! and Magical Mystery Tour. Henry took a different path into showbusiness, picking up drums as a boy and playing in local bands around the Ebbw Vale and Tredegar area before moving on to groups in Cardiff and eventually London.
Spinetti became one of Britain's most in-demand session drummers, building a career that stretched across five decades. He played on eight of the ten tracks on Gerry Rafferty's 1978 album City to City, including the enduring hit "Baker Street", and became a regular collaborator with Eric Clapton, joining his touring band in the 1980s and again in the 2010s. His drumming also appears on records by George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Roger Daltrey, Joan Armatrading, Bonnie Tyler, Cliff Richard and Katie Melua, among many others.
In 2002 Spinetti was part of the all-star line-up for The Concert For George, the memorial tribute to George Harrison at the Royal Albert Hall, cementing his standing among the musicians who worked closest with three of the four Beatles across their solo careers. From a Valleys upbringing in Cwm to decades behind the kit for some of rock's biggest names, Spinetti's career is a quiet but substantial Welsh success story in the world of session music.