Search - Michael Packer :: Michael Packer - Anthology (Let Me Introduce Myself)

Let Me Introduce Myself: Let me introduce myself. My name is Michael Packer. I am a musician. I sing and play the guitar. I am a recovering alcoholic. I was a bum who lived on the streets of New York City on and off for ten years. I had a good childhood. I was raised in the affluent town of Bedford NY in Westchester County. I am a convicted felon. I did time at Rikers Island. I recorded four albums for major labels RCA and Atlantic records. I hung out with famous people. I hung out with winos and junkies on the street. I loved and lost and I loved again. I slept with whores. I robbed, lied and cheated. I lived my life honestly and got good results. I blamed God and everyone around me for my misfortunes. I blamed myself and accepted my responsibilities. I wanted to be someone else and found out that I wasn't so bad after all. Let me introduce myself. My name is Michael Packer. A Life Worth Listening To: In this most honest and revealing anthology of a life far beyond one which most anybody would admit to, Michael brings us a vivid reflection of 40 years of living and working as a musician, artist, songwriter. The album cover shows a 17 year old who started performing in high school. There is an underlying sense of romance in the songs, certainly adventure, definitely real life pain, bleeding. Early on there is a sense of promise, of ease, freedom in Lazy Day , The Country , perhaps calm before the storm in Give Her Time , The Smile in the Sky , and even a later a brief return in Run Wild. There are imagined desires lived in Louisiana Woman and Judson Queen , and real desire lived in dark contradictions in Love Comes Easier , My Woman Tonight and Bad Time Jackson ,. There are the getaways, ( In My Getaway and California ), and the run away into the depths of alcoholism, told in Drowning In A River of Wine (which took him down from a rising recording artist), and recalled in Good Times, Sad Times . There are the love-life letdowns and ups, and downs again found in, I m In Love She Left This Morning , The Love of a Woman , and the regrets in Straight to Her Heart , giving wise advice by someone who knows, but also knows, you can t go back again. Always, there is the need to touch the flame too closely, riding high under devil-may-care false realities as in Roll With The Punches , only to fall to a real reality of prison incarceration, the true story told in Took My Gun , to an even lower low revealed in Christmas on the Bowery . But this is a life worth listening to. Look at the Sunny Side of Me , the life of Michael Packer, who introduced himself to you 40 years ago, and today lets you in on a review, not just for a peek, but for a full length motion picture of missed opportunities and survival, still living to sing the blues with a right to sing the blues with his own blues band, in a better balance and frankly, lucky to be alive, to still be kicking, writing, singing, celebrating a life with much more to come.