He also played flute, violin, viola, saxophone, and oboe and was in demand as a session musician and arranger in Los Angeles in the 1940s and 1950s.
His best known song is "Let Me Go Home, Whiskey", which was a hit in the early 1950s for Amos Milburn, was later revived by Asleep at the Wheel, and later performed by Jerre Maynard and his Greazy Gravy Blues Band.
Henry recorded with and arranged for the elite of jazz and rhythm and blues, including Dinah Washington, Billy Eckstine, Dizzy Gillespie, Charles Mingus, The Treniers, Illinois Jacquet, and Miles Davis.
The Shifty Henry All-Stars played regularly at New Year's Eve balls thrown by socialite Dorothy Chandler and her husband Otis, publisher of the Los Angeles Times.
He is mentioned by name in a verse of "Jailhouse Rock" by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller: "Shifty Henry said to Bugs, for heaven's sake, no one's looking, now's a chance to make a break.