SANDPOINT - Charley Packard has what one might call a colorful resume. He was signed by Epic Records in the late-1960s to record an album with his band, Charley D. & Milo, featuring songwriting partner Lon Milo DuQuette and their bandmates. After some radio play and a bit of industry attention, the singer-songwriter ended the decade of the 1970s by pulling the plug on life in the fast lane and moved to Sandpoint with his wife and young son.

Almost immediately, the transition began to pay dividends - not always financial in nature. Packard was embraced by local musicians and audiences alike, as he continued to turn out lyrically ornate songs and share them onstage. In another persona, he became a local fixture as "The Reverend Charley Packard" - otherwise known as the guy who would be willing to marry you off at a reasonable price in a field of daisies and then, at no extra charge, gladly pick up his guitar and sing a love song appropriate to the occasion.

Since 1979, he has performed more than 1,700 wedding ceremonies, the first of which included a bride named Karen Bowers, the woman who now is his partner.

Last year, the songwriter added an unexpected designation to his list of achievements - cancer survivor. As someone who made his living singing original songs and communicating with audiences, Packard, formerly a heavy smoker, was told he had cancer of the esophagus. The diagnosis left him with his career - and perhaps his life - in the balance.

Fast-forward to this month and the artist now finds himself cancer-free, playing guitar again and singing better than he has in decades. In celebration, a group of Sandpoint-area musicians will appear on the Panida Theater stage on May 1, in a concert event called "An Evening with Charley & Friends," to pay tribute to the songwriter through his own music.

At 73, Charley Packard looks back on a career as a poet-musician and forward to a new romance and a new lease on life. What he finds, to his delighted surprise, is that it looks like the best is yet to come.

Was there a defining moment that steered you toward a life in music?

My father took his G.I. Bill - it was just he and I; my parents were divorced - and he went to a music conservatory in Houston, Texas. I was probably five or six and I hung around with him and the musicians. At nighttime, they would load me up with them and we would go out and listen to music.

We'd listen to jazz, listen to blues, I heard people playing the harmony that I heard in my head. We lived with musicians and the whole lifestyle just rubbed off and appealed to me.

When did you get into the act?

I was probably 17 or 18. It was during the early folk music days of the Kingston Trio and Peter, Paul and Mary. Something about it moved me. The poetry and the gentleness of it, I think. And the harmony. So I learned a few chords and the next thing you know, I can sing a Kingston Trio song at parties. (laughs)

What was your first bona fide gig?

A group of church ladies gave me and another guy $5 each and we sang three or four songs. That's bona fide, if you walk away with some money, right?

But, really, the first gig for me was when I was at the University of Kansas and talked a guy into having a folk music night. We formed a little trio and sang all the songs that Peter, Paul and Mary did and a few others, like Woody Guthrie. We actually got a meal, a few bucks and a steady gig out of it.

Do remember the first song you ever wrote?

Yes. The first song I ever wrote was called, 'Gutter Water Boat.' I had it in the works back in Kansas. When I went out to California, I seriously considered being a songwriter and I finished it up there.

It was a pretty simple, little tune: 'Gutter water boat, I made you with my own, two hands. Gutter water boat, sailing off to distant lands. Gutter water boat, can I sail with you?' It's actually a cute song. That's why I tell songwriters, 'Don't critique your own material.' You might touch someone with something that you dismissed as sophomoric or amateurish - you might have something there.

Did that song play a part in getting a contract with Epic?

With Epic Records, yes. I think we sang it, but by then, my partner, Milo, and I had written several songs together. We had improved as songwriters, we had good harmony and we were in the right place at the right time. That's what it takes.

I had banged on doors in Hollywood for a couple of years. I was disappointed by the liars and the jivers, so I quit going up there. A guy who turned out to be our manager, Bill Mann, walked in while I was playing at a Reuben's restaurant and said, 'How'd you like to record?' There were so many people better than me who just hung around and hung around until, finally, they went back home to Oklahoma. They weren't in the right place at the right time.

Everybody's got a recording studio on their smartphone these days. What was it like to enter a real Hollywood studio as a newly discovered artist?

The larger studios were very intimidating. Laid out in front of you were 36 tracks of massive gear, giant speakers.

You look through the glass and there's a huge studio with microphones and a vocal booth. It was very romantic, but also intimidating.

You were at the mercy of the engineers and producers until you learned some of the technique yourself. Then you could sort of take control. I loved going up there. The fact that I was under the umbrella of CBS Records was really something. I was optimistic, for a while. But, like a lot of things, it doesn't wind up tasting or smelling like you thought it would.

I availed myself of way too many self-gratifications - alcohol and drugs. But I feel very fortunate to have been involved in the old Hollywood of those days. It's not there anymore.

That record - 'Charley D. & Milo - has kind of been rediscovered, hasn't it?

What happened is, in the digital domain, it's there forever. Well, I received a call from a young man who was a disc jockey in North Carolina. He said, 'Are you really Charley D.?' And I said, 'Huh?'

He loved the music from the Gram Parsons, Buffalo Springfield days and he loved the artists who were popular back then, like Charley D. & Milo. He was surprised I was still alive. (laughs) He told me, 'Google the record - you won't believe the global conversation that's going on about it.'

Now, when I listen to that album that was recorded in 1969, I appreciate it more, and I can see what other people see in it. We were fortunate to get on the radio in secondary markets and ran with it for a while. And it's still out there. That's the amazing thing about the digital world.

What made you decide to leave SoCal for North Idaho?

I was burning out in Southern California. A musician friend, Dennis Coats, came up and played Expo 74 in Spokane. He and his wife, Carol, were driving one day on their day off, came across the Long Bridge and said, 'Oh, my!' I remember when they came back to Orange County, they sold everything right and left and then packed up and moved here.

So, a couple years later, I drove up and checked it out. When I saw Sandpoint, I said, 'This is it.' It was the best decision I ever made in my life.

Sandpoint really embraced you as an artist, didn't it?

I'm really blessed by that. But I had some forerunners. Beth & Cinde were here and they were so, so good. Pat Ball, Tom Newbill, John Knapp. There were some great bands floating around here. It was like 'Johnny B. Goode' - they'd all come out of the woods and kick butt.

Dylan and The Band moved to Woodstock and came up with works like 'John Wesley Harding' and 'Music From Big Pink.' Did your songwriting style change when you moved here from the big city?

I think it did. I had developed confidence in my poetry. And I had artists here that I respected very much that I used as sounding boards. Cinde Borup, for instance. If she said, 'I like that,' I knew I was on to something.

What do you tell songwriters who use you as a sounding board?

After I listen to their song I say, 'You get an A. Now write another one. And then write another one. Just keep on writing.' It's art - it's a continuing thing. That song might be done, but you're not done writing songs.

Your songs have an ease to them, as if they came to you fully realized. But there's a lot more behind it, isn't there?

There is and there isn't. I don't want to get too far out, but there seems to be a 'song space' of poetry and visualization, of melodies and harmonies. If you're sitting on the couch and you tap into that, you can get guided into something that will appeal to a group of folks that those energies wanted to appeal to. So, you become sort of a vessel. Dylan knew that. All folk singers and poets know that.

Do you consider yourself a poet or a songwriter?

I've grown as a musician, but I think I'm more of a poet. I'd never consider myself a real musician, but I love melodies and harmonies, I love to sing and I love to perform - more and more. Especially now that I've been clean and sober for about 20 years. My appreciation for life and for music, in particular, makes me grateful that I chose to hang around with musicians and poets.

The Rolling Stones notwithstanding, most musicians have chosen to hang it up by this stage in their career. What keeps you coming back?

I've learned to say yes and no. I look for gigs where I can get some attention. I have three guys who accompany me and they're very talented. We just have fun. We call it 'bowling night.'

If I play a song and 50 heads turn my way with a smile, at my age, I just go, 'Wow! They're going to pay me for this!'

You were fighting cancer over the past year or so - can you talk about that?

I was diagnosed about a year ago and it's been a long, different kind of year, that's for sure. A lot of chemotherapy and radiation at the same time. They bring you close to death and then you wake up, after a couple of months. I had a couple of major surgeries and they removed my esophagus.

But it's turned out real well. I'm cancer-free. I can eat now and I feel better and better every day. I'm blessed to have so many friends who let me know they were thinking about me and praying for me. I'm blessed to have a new partner, Karen, who was there constantly - I mean constantly - through all this. I was married for 38 years to a lovely woman, Colleen, who died of cancer. She was diagnosed and died within two weeks. I was in shock for a few years. And then I fell in love with somebody I'd known for 35 years. She helped me so much through this past year. Still does.

As a singer, was it worse to be diagnosed with the type of cancer you had?

It was a big gulp, because there were so many questions. Are you going to have to take away my vocal cords? Will I even be able to speak? But I had an incredibly gifted surgeon who was very positive and told me, 'No, you're going to be able to sing.' I knew, if I lived through it, someday I'd be singing again. So now I'm getting my guitar calluses back and I'm singing a little bit. I expect to be playing out in public again in a month or so. We'll see.

There's a concert coming up May 1 to pay tribute to that ordeal through your own music. What does that feel like, to be the subject of a 'tribute concert?'

It makes me rather uneasy and I'm kind of embarrassed by the whole thing. I've been encouraged to stop thinking that way and lend my energy to it. I'm grateful that people thought about it now. I'm bought in and ready to go. (laughs)

This seems like kind of a dark question to ask a guy who just battled his way back from cancer, but, if you could choose a couple lines from one of your songs as your epitaph, what would they be?

Lines are gifted by that cloud of poetry we mentioned and there are so many that it would be hard to choose. But I do have one song that comes to mind - it's called 'Give Me An Old Gal.'

The words are, 'Give me an old gal, who's been around the block before.' Yeah, put that on my headstone: 'Give me an old gal.' I know they're in heaven, too.