Since disbanding NSG in late 1995 (faced by the same inevitable problems of all big-band leaders from Jelly Roll Morton to Quincy Jones), I was faced with an obvious problem: how could I create orchestrated music, layered arrangements, the sound I had in my head, without a performing band? Better yet, was there a way to do it that was better suited to my way of working than a band? I began to think there was. I began to think about having the freedom to draw from an enlarged, ever-shifting constellation of collaborators, with a core group of favourites. As I looked at the careers of other rock composers such as Frank Zappa, I realized that this was the post-band model at which they had also arrived.

Thus SunSign Productions was born. Not a band, but an international production company with a composer/producer at the helm. The function of SunSign is to coordinate the creation of my musical productions. Every stage — from the initial vision through selecting musicians, planning rehearsals and booking the studio, and on to mixing the final tracks — takes work, and much of that work is done through SunSign.

The Work of an Auteur: The Vision Thing.

I am not (with rare exceptions) a producer-for-hire, but an auteur-producer. My gift, as an auteur, is creating large-scale works of the imagination, which in turn, give other artists a framework in which to use and display their own wonderful gifts. So the great success of the production is that you’re hearing many talents working in concert, unified by one overarching vision. This is the production model behind most of your favourite films, musicals, plays, and symphonies. I have a vision, a “big picture,” and I invite other artists to add their creativity to it, like Steven Speilberg looking for the right actors for his next movie -- actors who will satisfy Spielberg's vision of the film, while also bringing their own essence to it. The auteur receives the fulfillment of realizing her vision, and the artists get exposure to new styles, new audiences, and a platform on which to really shine. That’s a great symbiosis!

Nowadays, I work exactly the same way as when I worked with The New St. George, but with an international talent pool instead of a performing entity with fixed members. I work more like a classical composer/conductor than anyone in the folk/rock/pop worlds (except perhaps, for my models Brian Wilson, Frank Zappa, Alan Parsons, Mike Oldfield, and a few others). And, like a classical composer, I rarely feature myself in my own settings. While I play perfectly good keyboard and accordion, and have even won national attention and awards for both, doing solos is not really how I get my jollies.

I often tell people — “I’m not a soloist, I’m a symphonist.” For me, because I think in thick vertical stacks and big textures, it’s the sound of the instruments and voices working together that’s the thing. My visions tend to be all-out big ones — they take at least five people to pull off, and up to thirteen in some productions! But my very inability to give voice to it all myself has turned out to be a great asset. Other artists love making their contribution, and so the finished production has the strength of not one, but many.

I very much enjoy the curatorial aspects of producing. I am a connoisseur of singers and instrumentalists; when I go to other musicians’ concerts, I am enjoying the performances, but sometimes I am also “window shopping” – imagining how I could utilize their particular gifts in a future production. In this way, when I get to the actual recording of my projects, I have a pretty good idea of whom I want to work with.

There's a lot of work I have to do before I ever enter the studio with other musicians. For each piece, I go through roughly the following stages:

RESEARCH OR COMPOSING: For traditional songs and tunes, I usually use books and manuscripts in my workplace, the Archive of Folk Culture, and beyond, in the larger Library of Congress general collections. I also find CDs on my travels in Europe and elsewhere, and use them as source material. In some cases, I write the whole kit and kaboodle myself, which can be a long process involving inspiration, perspiration, and meditation, not to mention manuscript paper and Sibelius software!

ARRANGING: In this stage, I monkey with accidentals, chords and substitutions, time signatures, rhythm, etc...all the things that turn a simple melody into an arranged piece of music. This can involve transcribing tunes from recordings, deciding which instruments, keyboard patches, and samples will be used in my version, figuring out how to alter the tune to accommodate those sounds, and many other steps. It can also involve composing instrumental hooks, bridges and other motifs to turn traditional songs (whose structure is to repeat the same melody from beginning to end) into symphonic pop songs (which have more elaborate architecture).

DEMOING: I usually record a home studio version to see what works and what doesn’t. This is often done off the cuff, with a high degree of experimentation and no rehearsal. I often play most of the parts myself, using different sounds and samples on my keyboard...and I invite friends to help with some of the parts, especially vocals.

TRACKING: I assemble a cast of thousands (or at least, say, five to ten musicians, an engineer or two, and sometimes a co-producer) to join me in a professional recording studio. Sometimes this stage is done in several sessions at several studios...sometimes even on several continents!

EDITING/MIXING: This is the crucial stage in which we take the individual performances of my musicians and layer them into a beautiful recording. Mixing takes more work and more artistry than many people realize, and it often takes me and my co-workers several sessions of many hours' duration to get a song exactly right. Small discrepancies or irregularities in the musicians' timing must often be edited to bring the tracks into perfect synch. I must also decide, for example, which instrumental solo goes after which verse; once the individual parts are recorded, new ideas sometimes work better than what I had planned. Also, I must of course decide how prominent each instrument (and the vocal) should be at every moment of the song. Keeping in mind the original texture and soundscape I had in my head, the goal is to come as close to it as we can—unless we can improve on it!

The Work of the Leader/Producer.

Someone once said that the relationship between bandleaders and musicians is a lot like sex: it has to be consensual to be good! If a musician HAS to be there, because he is obligated or compelled to be, the results won't be as good as if he really WANTS to be. This has led me to the “revolving lineup” model. Unlike the “John, Paul, George & Ringo” model, if someone needs to leave the recording project or live performance lineup, the show still goes on! And all the musicians are there because they want to be there. When I look at the list of wonderful musicians who have wanted to contribute to my work, I feel very fortunate: singers such as Maddy Prior, Polly Bolton and Annie Haslam; guitarists Tony Cuffe, Clive Gregson, and John Jennings; drummer Dave Mattacks, piper Troy Donockley and fiddler Peter Knight... geniuses, all. Musical soulmates, all. And it wouldn’t work if they couldn’t come and go as they please.

I like to s-t-r-e-t-c-h people (only the ones who enjoy it, of course!) In a transatlantic telephone rehearsal, I once asked Polly Bolton to “sing like a mermaid from India,” which she did immediately, knocking my socks right off. Another way I like to stretch artists is to employ them in a completely different way than you usually hear them. For example, years ago, I had well known acoustic fingerstyle guitarist Al Petteway play the electric guitar in my setting of traditional song “Time to Remember the Poor.” I asked him for “a gritty electric jangle,” and, when he played that passage, the result was nothing less than blistering (it made me see psychedelic lights and smell incense!) On another occasion, I utilized the late Scottish traditional musician Tony Cuffe (who has always played rather gentle acoustic music) in one of my newer Electric Folk settings. It demanded his playing a complex prog-rock chord progression on the acoustic guitar over a full electric rhythm section, and screeching into an instrumental solo using a pennywhistle as if it had been an electric guitar. The effect was spine-tingling.

Some people tell me I am a perfectionist, and they're right. There are just some people who are highly attuned to detail, whose gift is to see what’s missing and, more importantly, how to make things better. We are the people with the “quality control” jobs, creating and upholding high standards. It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it.... On the other hand, I am not by any means unpleaseable. In fact, I can sometimes go over the top when someone puts down a fantastic performance, dancing and shouting in the control room, or (as Polly will attest) breaking down and weeping at the sheer beauty of what I have just witnessed. I am regularly very pleased. Working with these musicians in realizing a vision is the greatest privilege I have ever known, the best job in the world.