The Song B.B. King Carried for Years Before Finally Getting It Right

In the early hours of a night in New York, B.B. King finally found the sound he had been searching for.

The song wasn’t even his originally. Roy Hawkins and Rick Darnell had written it in 1951, and Hawkins had already taken it into the R&B charts. But something about the song stayed with King. He later said he carried it around in his head for years, trying different versions without finding the one he wanted.

Then, in 1969, everything came together.

King entered the studio with a small group of musicians, including Herbie Lovelle, Paul Harris, Hugh McCracken and Gerald Jemmott. In the middle of the night, the pieces finally clicked. King later recalled knowing, “Yeah, this is it.”

Producer Bill Szymczyk then added the strings that gave the recording its haunting, almost cinematic atmosphere. It was a striking departure from the traditional blues sound King was known for.

Released as a single in late 1969, the recording became one of the biggest successes of King’s career, reaching No. 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 and earning him a Grammy in 1970.

But the real story is not the chart success.

It is the patience.

B.B. King had carried the song with him for years, refusing to record it until he felt he had finally found its soul.

And when he did, the result became one of the defining sounds of his entire career.

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Dave Grohl Heard Norah Jones and Imagined Her on a Foo Fighters Song — Then “Virginia Moon” Became Something Completely Unexpected

A song that didn’t fit anywhere

By 2005, Foo Fighters were known for loud guitars, huge choruses and Dave Grohl’s unmistakable rock voice.

But Grohl had an older song that never seemed to fit the band’s albums.

That song was “Virginia Moon.”

Grohl later explained that he had written it years earlier and had tried to record it before, but an acoustic, almost Brazilian-jazz song didn’t make sense in the middle of a rock record. When Foo Fighters began working on In Your Honor, a double album divided between electric and acoustic music, he finally saw where it belonged.

Then Norah Jones entered the picture

Grohl wanted a female vocalist for the song.

After listening to one of Norah Jones’s records, he felt her warm, jazz-influenced voice was exactly what the song needed.

So he called her.

Jones came into the studio in 2005, expecting perhaps something much more rock-oriented. Instead, Grohl asked her to sing on the quiet acoustic track.

The combination sounded unusual on paper.

A Foo Fighters frontman.

A Grammy-winning jazz-pop singer.

A gentle song with a bossa nova feel.

But Grohl could already hear it in his head.

It came together remarkably fast

Jones recorded vocals and piano for “Virginia Moon,” while Grohl supplied the lead vocal.

According to accounts from the recording sessions, the vocal work took only about three hours, with Grohl particularly impressed by how naturally Jones fit the song.

The track appeared on In Your Honor in June 2005.

It wasn’t a typical Foo Fighters single.

There were no screaming guitars or arena-sized chorus.

Instead, it felt intimate, dreamy and almost weightless.

A different side of Dave Grohl

“Virginia Moon” revealed something that could easily be missed when looking at Grohl’s career from the outside.

The man who had spent years making aggressive rock music also had a deep appreciation for quieter songwriting.

The song allowed him to step away from the intensity of Foo Fighters and create something much more delicate.

And Norah Jones gave it exactly the musical color he had imagined.

An unexpected collaboration that worked

The pairing was surprising.

That’s probably part of what made it memorable.

Grohl didn’t ask Jones to sound like a rock singer.

Jones didn’t try to turn Foo Fighters into a jazz band.

They simply met somewhere in the middle.

“Virginia Moon” became one of the most distinctive tracks on In Your Honor — a reminder that sometimes the most interesting musical moments happen when two artists leave their usual worlds behind.

Listen to “Virginia Moon”

▶️ Foo Fighters feat. Norah Jones – “Virginia Moon”