Clem Cattini

Clemente Anselmo Agustino Cattini was born on 28 August 1937 in Stoke Newington, north London, to Italian parents. His father ran a restaurant in Elephant and Castle, and the young Clem worked there before deciding to pursue music. He said his first musical love was Latin rhythm. As a boy he played ice hockey but kept getting injured, which pushed him towards something that would use his natural sense of rhythm without the bruises. A guitarist friend who wanted to start a band told him he should be the drummer.

Details of Cattini's schooling have not been made public. He had no formal musical training and never learned to read music fluently. He said that when he started he did not know the difference between a crotchet and a hatchet, and that on many sessions he simply looked at a blank chart. He learned on the job in the coffee bars of Soho, and producers prized him for his steady time, feel and speed in the studio rather than technical reading.

Cattini started at the 2i's Coffee Bar in Soho backing Terry Dene, then joined the Beat Boys, the touring band behind Larry Parnes's singers including Marty Wilde and Billy Fury. In 1960 he and bassist Brian Gregg auditioned for and joined the newly formed Johnny Kidd and the Pirates. His first ever recording, "Shakin' All Over", went to number one in the UK in August 1960.

After backing Colin Hicks in Italy, he became Joe Meek's house drummer at 304 Holloway Road, and in 1961 he was a founder member of the Tornados. Their 1962 instrumental "Telstar" topped the charts in Britain and the United States, the first number one on the Billboard Hot 100 by a British group. Cattini created its galloping beat. He also played with the Luvvers, Lulu's backing band, alongside John Paul Jones.

From about 1965 he was a full-time session musician, sometimes playing 21 sessions a week. He is credited on at least 42 UK number one singles and hundreds of other records, for artists including the Kinks, Dusty Springfield, the Walker Brothers, Tom Jones, Engelbert Humperdinck, Love Affair, Donovan, Jeff Beck, the Bee Gees, Marc Bolan and T. Rex, Lou Reed, Cliff Richard, Hot Chocolate, the Bay City Rollers, Brotherhood of Man, Carl Douglas, the Wombles and Paul McCartney's Thrillington. He played in the BBC Top of the Pops orchestra and toured with Cliff Richard, Roy Orbison, Lynda Carter and the Kids from Fame.

When drum machines thinned out session work in the 1980s, he revived the Tornados name for touring. In 1989 he played in the West End run of The Rocky Horror Show, and he later drummed behind Kenny Lynch. In 2010 he recorded "No Tears to Cry" for Paul Weller's Wake Up the Nation, and in 2016 he recut "Telstar" with the north London ska band the Skammers. His last number one was the 2005 Comic Relief release of "(Is This The Way To) Amarillo".

Cattini lived for decades in north London, latterly in Winchmore Hill, with his wife Anna. In his autobiography the footballer Nicklas Bendtner recalled lodging with Anna and Clem Cattini when he joined the Arsenal academy at 15, describing Clem as a lovely man and a huge Arsenal fan. Cattini mentioned his daughter in interviews; her name has not been widely published. In 2010 the Observer found him in a small house in a north London cul-de-sac with the gold disc for "Telstar" on the wall.

Cattini was famously modest about his gifts. He described himself as "a musical navvie" and said he was not a technical drummer, only someone people told had good time and groove. He felt the Tornados never got the credit they deserved for arranging "Telstar", and he was blunt about Joe Meek's musicianship while admiring his ear for sound. He disliked the turn to drum machines and sequencers in the 1980s, which he called "mechanical music", and he told a 1998 interviewer he was disappointed that even a player as good as Phil Collins relied on them. He also argued that session players were used more than band members simply because they were faster and more efficient in the studio.

Cattini is widely cited as the musician who played on more UK number one singles than anyone else, with counts ranging from 42 to more than 45. He drummed on two of the founding records of British rock and roll, "Shakin' All Over" and "Telstar", and on a long run of hits that defined 1960s and 1970s British pop. Paul Weller said Cattini played on many of his favourite records, singling out his fills on Love Affair's "Everlasting Love" and the Casuals' "Jesamine". Broadcasters and fans have described him as Britain's answer to the American session drummer Hal Blaine.

"Telstar", which Cattini helped arrange and on which he played, won an Ivor Novello Award and sold millions of copies worldwide. Its gold disc hung in his home. No formal state honours for Cattini have been documented in the sources reviewed for this profile. His standing rests on his record of chart-topping sessions.

In the 2008 film Telstar, about Joe Meek, Cattini was played by James Corden, and he appeared himself in a cameo as John Leyton's chauffeur. His memoir, Clem Cattini: My Life, Through the Eye of a Tornado, written with Clive Smith and Bip Wetherell, was published in July 2019. He gave many long interviews, including a 1995 Abbey Road conversation with Mo Foster, a 2008 Tornados interview with John Repsch, the Hudson Music series The Roots of Rock Drumming, and a 2019 Strange Brew podcast.

Session credits were rarely recorded in the 1960s, and several of Cattini's sessions were later disputed. For years it was claimed that Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and John Bonham played on Donovan's "Hurdy Gurdy Man". Jones repeatedly confirmed the line-up was himself, guitarist Alan Parker and Cattini on drums, though Cattini said it took about a year to prove he was on it. He also said he could not remember some sessions he is often credited with, such as Tom Jones's "It's Not Unusual".

Clem Cattini died on 2 November 2026, aged 89. The Joe Meek Society wrote on 3 November that he had passed away the previous day, and the musician and writer David Stark said he had suffered a fall at home. Tributes followed from The Strange Brew, the Joe Meek Society, family friends and broadcasters. Funeral arrangements had not been made public at the time of writing.