Warren Haynes Reflects on B.B. King]

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!

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I saw B.B. for the first time aged 19, and he gave me a guitar pick that I carried in my pants pocket for years until it eventually got lost. Then when I joined the Allman Brothers, we played with him in Texas. During the show, B.B. invited Gregg to sit in, and he went up to the mic and asked, ‘Anyone else want to join me?’

More than anything, I wanted to go, but I’d never met B.B. and thought he’d look at me like, ‘Who the hell are you?’ So I just froze. It was years later that I finally got another opportunity to play with B.B., and I have to say that was an extremely proud moment.

My other memory was in Memphis. The Allmans and B.B. were staying at the same hotel. There was a fire alarm and we had to evacuate. So I rode down in the elevator with B.B. in his pyjamas, and we were stood next to each other on the street, wondering if this hotel is going to burst into flames!