“I’d never met B.B. and thought he’d look at me like, ‘Who the hell are you?’ So I just froze”: Warren Haynes remembers B.B. King – from being in awe to playing with him

Warren Haynes and B.B. King, both captured in the ecstasies of the guitar solo.

Joe Bonamassa and I go way back, so when he told me about the B.B. tribute, I was like, ‘Yeah, sounds fun.’ I used to cover How Blue Can You Get in the ’70s, so I was glad they suggested that song because it would have been my first choice, for sure. I heard it first on Live In Cook County Jail [1971], then Live At The Regal [1965]. You can hear BB’s connection with the audience on that song – it always brought the house down.

My favourite line is: ‘I gave you seven children, and now you want to give them back.’ And, of course, with our version we had to update the price of the dinner. In the original, it’s $10, which at this point would barely cover a McDonald’s!