Henry Martínez (born February 13, 1950) is a Venezuelan musician and songwriter. He was born in Maracay, the capital city of Aragua state.Largely self-taught, Martínez learned to play acoustic guitar at an early age and received basic music training in his hometown between 1963 and 1968. Martínez also took private lessons with Aldemaro Romero and Luis Laguna, who incorporated him to his group Venezuela 4 in 1976.In his early years, Martínez was influenced by diverse music genres such as latin and jazz. Particularly, he showed special interest for the characteristic chord progressions used by Brazilian guitarists such as Laurindo Almeida, Luiz Bonfá, Baden Powell and Bola Sete. Moreover, Martínez was impressed by the work of lyricists and songwriters like Antonio Carlos Jobim, Vinicius de Moraes, Silvio Rodríguez and Joan Manuel Serrat, in order to become a significant figure in avant-garde popular music of Venezuela.

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