Spoonful 17 minute live version from the 1968 album Wheels of Fire, by Eric Clapton and Cream
Presumably why I only heard their studio version just last week:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoonful
The British rock group Cream recorded "Spoonful" for their 1966 UK debut album, Fresh Cream. For the American release of Fresh Cream, "I Feel Free" was substituted for "Spoonful". The song was released in the US later in 1967 as a two-sided single,[8] but edited so that Part 1 fades out at the beginning of the instrumental break and Part 2 begins just before the third verse.[9] The unedited studio version made its US album debut on the Best of Cream compilation in 1969.
Cream frequently played "Spoonful" in concert, and the song evolved beyond the blues-rock form of the 1966 recording into a vehicle for extended improvised soloing influenced by the San Francisco music scene of the late 1960s. One such rendering, lasting nearly seventeen minutes, is included on their 1968 album Wheels of Fire. Although the album notes indicate "Live at the Fillmore", "Spoonful" was actually recorded at the [San Francisco’s] Winterland Ballroom.[10]
8 minute live version on YouTube, including video of the performance
22 minute live version from a bootleg tape, arguably the best, now the album Sun Vanishes: Birth Of The Six Strings God.
Cream - Detroit 1967
http://bigozine2.com/roio/?p=2098
This is the best soundboard recording to surface from The Grande Ballroom in Detroit on October 15, 1967. By this time, Cream were much more adventurous in their playing when compared to shows earlier in year. This set features a truly amazing version of “Spoonful”. . . .
The original version of Spoonful by Howlin Wolf (written by Willie Dixon):
Live television performance by Howlin Wolf (on a different song), introduced by Shindig producer Jack Good and the Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger and Brian Jones (Little Red Rooster, which they talk about, was also written by Dixon):
Willie Dixon played at the Maintenance Shop, which I saw. It was a great performance. It was interesting to hear so many songs he had written made famous by other blues and rock and roll acts, performed, and performed well, by the original artist. Spoonful was the first song of the second set. Just before that, during intermission, the harmonica player that night, Sugar Blue, sat at our table and chatted for a bit. Sugar Blue was best known then for playing harmonica on the most recent Stones’ albums, Some Girls and Emotional Rescue. I see now that the Stones discovered, and hired him, playing on the streets in Paris. He filled in that night for Dixon’s regular harmonica player, who was sick.
Mick Jagger and Keith Richard also saw Dixon perform, as kids, in London. In an interview, Dixon said after the club filled, he asked that they let the kids in the back door. When The Rolling Stones met and visited with Dixon in Chicago, he said they asked if they remembered them. He said of course not. Not only were they little kids then, but also because they were unrecognizable with their long hair.
Ironic that this post on Cream is next to a thread on “lotion recommendation.” : )