That Friday night, my beloved Milwaukee Bucks defeated the Baltimore Bullets 118-106 to win the NBA championship. One of the Bucks’ stars was center Lew Alcindor, who had just turned 24.

The next day, Alcindor announced that he would thereafter be known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Today, my friend Kurt — also a big fan of those Bucks — tipped me to a wonderful essay written by Kareem, now 66. Posted by Esquire, “20 Things I Wish I’d Known When I was 30″ is well worth your time.

No. 1 on Kareem’s list: “Be more outgoing.”

“My shyness and introversion from those days
still haunt me. … When I was off the court,
I felt uncomfortable with attention. I rarely partied
or attended celebrity bashes.”

So I wonder. Did Kareem, now writing for Esquire, ever cross paths with the Esquires during his six years in Milwaukee? Kareem was, and is, a jazz buff. But did he ever hear, and appreciate, one of the city’s top soul and R&B groups?

The Esquires, a vocal group many compare to — and mistake for — Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions, had a smash single with “Get On Up” in 1967. Lew Alcindor didn’t arrive in town until two years later, when the Esquires were making their last serious run at the R&B charts with the singles “I Don’t Know” in 1969 and “Girls In The City” in 1970.

So tonight on The Midnight Tracker, materializing from the sweet blue haze of time (and smoke from the corridors of the Milwaukee Arena), is a sweet side from one of Milwaukee’s finest groups.

“And Get Away,” “Listen To Me,” “How Was I To Know,” “Groovin’,” “Everybody’s Laughing” and “How Could It Be,” the Esquires, from “Get On Up And Get Away,” 1967. This is Side 1. It runs 14:49. This was the Esquires’ only LP. It’s available on a 1995 CD titled “Get On Up” and digitally.

This side leads off with the follow-up single to “Get On Up.” They were released in July and September 1967, both reaching the Top 10 on the R&B charts. The second cut, “Listen To Me,” was the B side to “Get On Up.” The fifth cut, “Everybody’s Laughing,” was the B side to “And Get Away.” “Groovin’” is a cover of the Young Rascals tune. Everything else on this side was written or co-written by lead singer Gilbert Moorer.

Tonight, we’re heeding the advice at No. 13 on Kareem’s list. “Do one thing every day that helps someone else.”

“This is about helping one individual you know
by name. Maybe it means calling your parents,
helping a buddy move, or lending a favorite jazz album
to Chocolate Fingers McGee.”

Consider this the digital version of the latter.

Yeah, maybe Foreigner became mainstream arena rockers, but that record sounded great when it hit Top 40 radio otherwise full of mush in early 1977. It sounded solid and muscular because it crashed a chart populated at the top by Hall and Oates, 10cc, Abba, Barbra Streisand, David Soul, the Atlanta Rhythm Section, Glen Campbell and Kansas.

That great sound was the result of an inspired teaming: Two veteran Brits — guitarist Mick Jones (who’d played with Spooky Tooth and the Leslie West Band and had backed Peter Frampton and George Harrison) and the versatile Ian McDonald (who’d been in the first incarnation of King Crimson in the late ’60s) — with New York singer Lou Gramm.

Boston seemingly had kicked open the door a year earlier, and Foreigner followed it through. In fact, Foreigner’s debut record arrived just as the enduring power — or at least the radio presence — of Boston’s debut record had peaked and was starting to fade.

Mark E., a friend of the blog who has long worked in radio, raves about “Foreigner.”

“Not only did the hits from the album sound great, so did album cuts like ‘I Need You,’ ‘At War With The World’ and ‘The Damage is Done.’

So tonight on The Midnight Tracker, materializing through the sweet blue haze of time, is a side with a couple of those cuts.

“Long, Long Way From Home,” Woman Oh Woman,” “At War With the World,” “Fool For You Anyway” and “I Need You,” Foreigner, from “Foreigner,” 1977. This is Side 2. It runs 20:04. It’s also available digitally.

What followed from Foreigner, though popular, never seemed as fresh as that first record. This is the only Foreigner record I’ve kept.

One band that leaps to mind for doing so is Rare Earth. They did it three times in five years. “Get Ready” was that song twice, on the 1969 LP of the same name and on “Rare Earth In Concert,” the 1971 live LP. Both times, it was Side 2.

Tonight on The Midnight Tracker, we have the third one.

Almost 40 years ago, in April 1973, Rare Earth released “Ma.”

Critics and fans loved the record because Motown legend Norman Whitfield’s influence was all over it. He produced it and wrote or co-wrote with Barrett Strong all five of its cuts.

Yet Rare Earth lead singer and drummer Peter Rivera doesn’t share that enthusiasm. He saw Whitfield’s involvement as the beginning of the end for the band. In a fine interview with music writer Ray Shasho last fall, Rivera explained why:

“When (the) ‘Willie Remembers’ (LP) came out (in 1972), it didn’t get any promotion at all, and that’s when they said the only way to save a dying ship was to bring Norman Whitfield in.

“Motown thought the only redemption to our career was Norman Whitfield because he had, ‘Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone,’ ‘Ball Of Confusion,’ ‘Just My Imagination’ and he was Norman Whitfield of Motown. Norman was a great guy, a great producer, and rest his soul, but the political side of it back then was … they just didn’t trust anybody except in their own stable of people. So Norman came in and we did the ‘Ma’ album. I always called it the Norman Whitfield album played by Rare Earth. And you didn’t get the essence of Rare Earth. As a result, ‘Ma’ got just a little bit of attention but nothing serious, and we didn’t have the hits, so things just started getting worse. So after ‘Ma’ came out that was pretty much it. man.”

Later in the interview, Rivera added this:

“I think where Motown made a mistake, was when they panicked and they brought in Norman Whitfield, and once you’re not selling records with the company, it’s like nobody wants you anymore. And then we were having internal problems with jealousy and there were drugs involved and stuff like that, and everybody was acting crazy and it just kind of went away.”

“Ma” produced three singles — the title track, “Hum Along And Dance” and “Big John Is My Name,” but none broke the Top 100.

“Ma” the album-side-length title track features Rivera’s tremendous vocals and the muscular jamming we long ago came to expect from Rare Earth. But as always, you be the judge.

“Ma,” Rare Earth, from “Ma,” 1973. This is Side 1. It runs 16:42. The CD is still in print, but this cut isn’t available digitally.

Peter Rivera is billed on the LP under his real name, Peter Hoorelbeke.

When I turned 18 in the summer of 1975, that was the drinking age in Wisconsin. That I could go out to an old tavern and be introduced to John Prine’s music by a friendly, long-haired folk singer on a tiny stage, well, that’s just one of my great memories.

The drinking age is 21 now, but I’m sure Evan will have plenty of coffeehouse and rathskeller and student lounge performances to explore when he goes off to college in the fall. Maybe he, too, will learn of the wonderful Chicago folk singer John Prine in that manner. In fact, the only time I saw John Prine was on the UW-Green Bay campus, where Evan will be going.

This was the record I bought into when I started learning about John Prine. It’s been one of my favorites all these years.

I dug it out a couple of weeks ago when Pauline Phillips, the woman who wrote the “Dear Abby” column, passed away.

Prine wrote a typically irreverent, light-hearted song about Dear Abby in the early ’70s. It’s one of the songs on one of my favorite album sides, the one shared here tonight on The Midnight Tracker.

“Sweet Revenge,” “Please Don’t Bury Me,” “Christmas In Prison,” “Dear Abby,” “Blue Umbrella” and “Often Is A Word I Seldom Use,” John Prine, from “Sweet Revenge,” 1973. This is Side 1. It runs 19:17. It’s out of print but is available digitally.

A guy could learn a lot from John Prine, especially a college guy.

“Dear Abby, Dear Abby/Well I never thought/
That me and my girlfriend/Would ever get caught”

Yeah, let’s hope we don’t hear that anytime soon.

“I loved Deep Purple in HS and thus far have not parted with my DP vinyl, including ‘Burn.’ It’s part of my DNA, I think.”

Then, last week, I mentioned on Facebook that I was ripping a Deep Purple record. I didn’t mention which one. Even so, that unleashed a flood of fond memories from other friends, most of whom grew up in the ’70s as I did.

“Burn? Stormbringer? Come Taste the Band? one asked.

No.

“Machine Head?” another asked.

No.

“I know every word on ‘Machine Head.’ Proud of it, too!” my friend eagerly confessed. Now there is a rock chick for you. We went to high school together.

“Made in Japan?” another asked.

No.

The one I ripped is the one with “Woman From Tokyo” on it.

I’ve had Deep Purple’s “Who Do We Think We Are” for almost 40 years. I hadn’t listened to it for a long time, but I still knew almost every line. In the early ’70s, I didn’t have a lot of records, so I played it a lot. It’s part of my DNA, too.

“Woman From Tokyo” (spelled “Woman From Tokayo” on the album jacket) was the single and probably is the only cut anyone remembers off this record. So tonight on The Midnight Tracker, that side of that record emerges from the sweet blue haze of time.

“Woman From Tokyo,” “Mary Long,” Super Trooper” and “Smooth Dancer,” Deep Purple, from “Who Do We Think We Are,” 1973. This is Side 1. It runs 17:01. (The buy link is to a remastered 2002 CD release with extra tracks. It also is available digitally.)

Turns out this record remembered so vividly was something of an afterthought. In the latter part of 1972, a worn-out Deep Purple was hurled into studios in Rome and Frankfurt after a year and a half of touring. They slammed out this LP, which has only seven cuts. It was released in January 1973, during my sophomore year in high school.

This is the first Deep Purple lineup I knew — Jon Lord on keyboards, Ritchie Blackmore on guitar, Ian Gillan on vocals, Roger Glover on bass and Ian Paice on drums — so to me, it’s the classic lineup. They’re all great, even if this record apparently wasn’t.

Gillan, who was unhappy with the band’s direction at the time, recorded most of his vocals after the others had done the backing tracks. He quit Deep Purple for a decade after this record came out.

My introduction to Eddie Floyd came late. Seven years ago, Mojo magazine included a compilation of Southern soul music with its May issue. On that CD was a song called “I’ll Take Her.” Its premise, simply put in its lyrics: If you don’t want her, I’ll take her. That upbeat tune, with Floyd’s smooth voice lifted by some sweet horns and backup singers as it chugged along, hooked me.

So I’m making up for lost time. A couple of years ago, I somehow found Floyd’s debut LP, “Knock On Wood.” For whatever reason, you rarely see Eddie Floyd records in our corner of Wisconsin. Maybe, understandably, no one wants to part with them.

Listen to this, and you’ll know why.

“Knock On Wood,” “Something You Got,” “But It’s Alright,” “I Stand Accused,” “If You Gotta Make A Fool Of Somebody” and “I Don’t Want To Cry,” Eddie Floyd, from “Knock On Wood,” 1967. This is Side 1. It runs 17:32. The LP out of print but is available digitally.

Back in 1979, when Amii Stewart did “Knock On Wood,” I had no idea it was a cover of Floyd’s 1966 single, a smash he co-wrote with the great Memphis guitarist Steve Cropper, but a song originally intended for Otis Redding. Told you I was late to the party.

This side of the LP is all covers, aside from the title track. “Something You Got” came from New Orleans, done first by Chris Kenner with help from Allen Toussaint in 1961. “But It’s Alright” was a hit for J.J. Jackson in 1966. Jerry Butler co-wrote “I Stand Accused” with his brother Billy and released it as a single in 1964. The fifth cut, “If You Gotta Make A Fool Of Somebody,” was a hit for James Ray in 1962, but I came to know it via the Amazing Rhythm Aces, who covered it on their self-titled 1979 LP, which is one of my favorites. “I Don’t Want To Cry” is Chuck Jackson’s first hit from 1961.

This LP, recorded in the latter part of 1966, is Floyd backed by Booker T. and the M.G.’s. Not bad for your first solo record. At the time, Floyd was working mostly as a songwriter at Stax Records in Memphis, often for his old friend Wilson Pickett. Floyd and Pickett had sung together with the Falcons, a Detroit group, in the early ’60s. Floyd founded the group in 1955. It disbanded when Pickett went solo in 1963, and Floyd turned to songwriting. He joined Stax in 1965.

After “Knock On Wood,” all that changed.

It’s hard to tell how much Eddie Floyd, now 75, still performs, if at all. Summer before last, he mentored young people at the Stax Music Academy in Memphis. Interviews with Floyd suggest a gentleman as sweet as his music.

They’re most often on the other end of your phone, robocalling. They’re stuffing postcards into the mail, perhaps never realizing those cards usually go directly from the mail drop to the recycling bin without coming into the house. They’re down at the corner, planting campaign signs in the highway right-of-way, which is a Bozo no-no in Wisconsin.

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to enjoy our notion of a soundtrack for all this intrigue.

“Mission: Impossible,” “Jim On The Move,” “Operation Charm,” The Sniper, “Rollin Hand” and “The Plot,” from Lalo Schifrin, “Music From ‘Mission: Impossible’,” 1967. This is Side 1. It runs 17:07. It’s out of print, including a 1996 CD reissue.

Starting with the full version of the familiar TV theme song, a classic, this is a wonderfully evocative, suggestive side of late ’60s jazz and pop. Recorded over three days in October 1967, it reached No. 11 on the Billboard jazz chart in 1968.

Arranged and conducted by Schifrin, it’s performed by a who’s who of great Hollywood studio musicians. Mike Melvoin has the piano solo on “Jim On The Move.” Bill Plummer (of the Cosmic Brotherhood) plays sitar on “The Sniper” (a strategy we most emphatically do not endorse). The flip side has sax solos by Bud Shank.

It’s almost too sophisticated to be a backdrop for today’s mean political climate.

Is anyone carrying out “Operation Charm” in an attempt to woo undecided voters? Didn’t think so.

Then again, even 45 years on, “The Plot” still tips you to something nasty going down.

Bill was a year ahead of me at our high school in central Wisconsin in the mid-’70s. We didn’t know each other well, but I knew through mutual friends that he was a fairly cool guy. Long story short, Bill came across The Midnight Tracker on the web and got in touch.

Back then, “The Midnight Tracker” was a late-night program on our local FM radio station, the one that was Top 40 by day and free-form by night. We both listened to it. Bill has a special fondness for the program, but we’ll share that story another time.

I asked Bill whether he had any requests for The Midnight Tracker. He responded with a rather formidable list of early ’70s rock albums. Tonight’s selection on The Midnight Tracker, materializing through the sweet blue haze of time, is one.

“Sweet Sweet Surrender,” “Why Should I Care,” “Lose Myself With You,” “Living Alone” and “I’m So Proud,” Beck, Bogert & Appice, from “Beck Bogert & Appice,” 1973. This is Side 2. It runs 18:51. It’s out of print but is available digitally.

Rock, soul and blues come together on this side from the early ’70s supergroup. It’s mellow at the start, then gets all crunchy and raved up (the third and fourth cuts are originals), then wraps up with a mellow Curtis Mayfield cover.

British guitar great Jeff Beck had long wanted to work with bass player Tim Bogert and drummer Carmine Appice, a couple of New Yorkers who had been in Vanilla Fudge and then Cactus. He started noodling with the idea of forming a power trio as early as 1969, but it didn’t happen until three years later.

The career arc of Beck, Bogert & Appice is a bit like a shooting star, burning brightly for a short time but fading quickly.

They started playing live gigs in the fall of 1972. They recorded their first (and ultimately only) studio album that winter and released it in the early spring of 1973. They kept touring for much of 1973 and released a live album that fall. They finished the tour in January 1974 and started recording a second studio album. They split up before summer arrived.

Three guys, one group, two years, two albums. The second studio album never saw the light of day, save for one cut that appeared on “Beckology,” a 1991 retrospective of Beck’s career.

It happened so quickly that I never had a proper introduction to them. Bill has remedied that, almost 40 years later.

The Detroit-based R&B/funk/soul band Rare Earth was at its peak when the “One World” LP was released in the summer of 1971. It followed 1969′s “Get Ready,” with its epic-length Temptations cover as the title track, and 1970′s “Ecology,” with its long jam cover of the Temptations’ “(I Know) I’m Losing You.”

Those records, and the live double LP that followed “One World” later in 1971, summon the sound of a band at the top of its game.

Emerging from the blue haze of time, we have this proof for you.

“What’d I Say,” “If I Die,” “Seed” and “I Just Want To Celebrate,” Rare Earth, from “One World,” 1971. This is Side 1. It runs 17:27. It’s out of print, apparently never released on CD, either.

It all starts with a long jam, a Ray Charles cover full of sizzling guitars (even a “Day Tripper” riff), guitars vs. horns, guitars vs. Hammond organ, call-and-response vocals, Ed Guzman’s scorching percussion and a funky minute-long percussion outro. “If I Die” is a deep cut from those free-form FM nights. Finally, we count off the beat — “one … two … three … four” — and there is a smash single that was full of more sizzling guitars, a trippy bridge and more of Guzman’s scorching percussion. Throughout the four cuts, Pete Rivera’s vocals make it clear this record is being made by men, not boys.

Rare Earth, of course, is long wrongly thought to be the only white act on a Motown label. According to the band’s official history, Motown signed other white acts, but Rare Earth was the only successful one, having honed its chops as a Motown cover band in the ’60s.

Along the way, I’ll get caught up with friends I haven’t seen for a while. Or in the case of Whiteray and the Texas Gal, friends I’ve met only online and never in real life.

The last stop will be a reunion with my friend Terry, whom I’ve known for 30 years. He moved away from here earlier this year to pursue a better opportunity in the news business. Terry is missed for many reasons, but foremost because we both dig music. He hepped me to plenty of good stuff, and for that I am ever grateful.

Life takes friends in different directions. You don’t hang out like you used to. You don’t go on new adventures. You don’t get exposed to new things. That’s life, but I miss those things.

When I wrote about the Bob Welch song “Hypnotized” in the wake of his passing earlier this month, I mentioned that Fleetwood Mac’s “Mystery To Me,” the album with “Hypnotized,” was one of the first I bought when I got back into buying vinyl records a few years ago.

Terry read that, sidled up to me via the comments and said:

“Another Welch nugget from that album is ‘Miles Away.’”

Truth be told, I bought that album solely for “Hypnotized.” I’m not at all familiar with the rest of it, even though I must have heard some of its cuts on the free-form radio of the early ’70s.

So, considering Terry’s recommendation, I ripped it. Tonight’s side on The Midnight Tracker, materializing from the sweet blue haze of time, features “Miles Away,” a song about getting away from it all.

“The City,” “Miles Away,” “Somebody,” “The Way I Feel,” “For Your Love” and “Why,” Fleetwood Mac, from “Mystery To Me,” 1973. This is Side 2. It runs 23:23.

The first three cuts were written by Welch. “The Way I Feel” and “Why” are Christine McVie compositions.

“For Your Love” is a cover of the Yardbirds tune. It replaced another Welch song late in the going. Some inner sleeves, including mine, show “Good Things (Come To Those Who Wait)” as the second-t0-last song on this side. Welch eventually re-recorded his song and released it as “Don’t Wait Too Long,” the second-to-last song on his “Three Hearts” LP in 1978.

This was the third of four Fleetwood Mac albums with Welch. He left the group after “Heroes Are Hard To Find” was released in late 1974.