Turns out his mum worshipped Elvis, though his Jamaican-born father was more into cricket.
"I was watching the Elvis '68 Comeback Special on TV, he was wearing black leather, he sang Jailhouse Rock, and he looked fantastic. But then my dad came home from work, sat down, and changed the channel. He wanted to watch the cricket," remembers Henry with a laugh.
Uncle Elvis may be one of his staple yarns yet he still talks excitedly about the King, who also helped inspire Henry's latest show, Cradle To Rave. It delves into his obsession with music and along the way charts the comedian's life story from growing up in the west Midlands on a steady diet of reggae and Elvis, to one of his first gigs as a member of The Black and White Minstrel Show, through to becoming one of Britain's most recognisable comics and actors.
The initial idea for Cradle To Rave came about because of the response he got from audiences when his stand-up shows went off on musical tangents. So he sat down with his long-time co-writer and friend Jon Canter and let rip - because he's good at that - about all things music.
"How music makes me feel. How terrible music makes me feel. How I've got quite broad tastes. How white people appreciate music differently to black people. And how we used to operate in music tribes when we were at school. The rocker tribe. The pop tribe. The soul music tribe. The folk music tribe.
"I just went into this long riff about how music forms a central core in most people's lives. And how some people really gravitate towards it and really grasp it and then there are other people who don't realise the effect music is having on them."
Not that the man, who is the former hubbie of Dawn French (they split in 2010), can explain why he loves music so much.
"It's a visceral thing," he says. "Music has an effect on my brain, my heart and my nerves."
The thing with Henry is it's hard to get a word in. It's almost as if he's practising his routine as he rattles off his musical memories and heading off on tangents about everything from German classical music that "slightly gets on my tits" to "Rufus Wainwright's incredible voice, Elton John's piano playing, Stevie Wonder's incredible lyricism, and Prince's virtuosity".
And this is Henry on how he went from having a limited musical palate in his teens and early 20s, to his vast tastes these days.
"I was very much a soul man and into my R&B and funk. And I was a big fan of pop music. And being black, what was very interesting growing up as a black boy in the Midlands, is that my mum wanted me to integrate with white people. She thought that was really important or else I wouldn't fit in. So I was encouraged to go out and mix with white people and their musical tastes were very different. They liked the Beatles and Stones and Simon and Garfunkel whereas at home we just had reggae music, soul music and Elvis and Jim Reeves.
"And the thing is, music is a currency between young people, they change it like money, so it became this weird thing of me listening to Bridge Over Troubled Water right through to the weirdest shit I've ever heard in my life. My friend Mack, he was into Black Sabbath and Deep Purple."
With his passion for music he toyed with the idea of making a career out of it in the mid 80s - and there is no doubt he can sing, though it still scares him a little to do it on stage. "It's like being naked in front of an audience. It's a raw thing to expose your voice like that."
However, he was warned off the idea by music producer Trevor Horn, the man who co wrote the song Video Killed the Radio Star and has done records with the likes of Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Pet Shop Boys and Seal.
"He said to me, 'If you want to do music you've got to do it 100 per cent. You can't do live entertainment and music at the same time so you've got to make a choice'. I thought about it for two or three months, and I was like, 'Well, actually, comedy bought my mum a house. I'm not sure music is going to buy my mum another house or pay for her medical care'. So I made a big choice to do comedy.
"I kind of wish [music] was something I had done because how fantastic would it be to have a hit record?"
Not that he regrets it, because as he points out gleefully, as a stand-up and on The Lenny Henry Show, a sketch comedy series which ran during the mid-80s, he has been able to sing some of the best songs ever written.
"I've impersonated Prince, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, and people like that. And so I've been able to be Snoop Dogg and then I've been able to take off that costume and be someone else."
And now, with Cradle To Rave, during which he sings and attempts to play piano ("from doing this show I've learned that I can't play piano," he hoots), he's doing musical comedy.
"It's gonna rock," he says as he signs off.
Who: Comedian Lenny Henry in Cradle to Rave
Where & when: Aotea Centre, June 24, 8pm
-TimeOut
