Mike Talanca releases music as Band of the Free, but Talanca is the only constant.

“I call it Band of the Free because I’m free to pick the people who are in the band,” he said. “It’s not about the band, it’s about the songs.”

As the owner of Tune Town Studio Recording Studio in Newton Falls, Talanca knows the talent pool in the Mahoning Valley, and he draws upon a who’s who of local players for “Merry Melody’s,” his fourth collection.

Talanca has no dreams of stardom or making riches from his recordings. He said he gave away far more copies of his last CD, “Creative Possession,” than he sold, and the main reason he plans to do a CD release for “Merry Melody’s” is that he thinks the musicians who worked on it deserve to have a physical copy of the songs.

Instead, he’s driven by a desire to create and preserve those ideas in the moment. It’s a lesson he learned from Mick Jones of Foreigner.

Before returning to the area in 1990, Talanca worked as chief technician at Right Track Recording in New York City. One of the albums he worked on was Foreigner’s “Inside Information.” After a late recording session, Talanca offered to give Jones a ride home, and on the drive Jones asked to hear some of Talanca’s music.

He didn’t have anything to share. Talanca had started plenty of songs, but he kept tinkering with them and never completed anything.

“He told me, ‘Finish the damn songs and move on. And don’t come back to them unless a record company pays you a lot of money to do it,'” Talanca said.

It’s a philosophy he’s tried to embrace ever since, and it makes for albums that are all over the map stylistically. “Merry Melody’s” opens with the vintage power pop sound of “You Can Bet” and touches on Latin rhythms (“You Have Me”), funky Caribbean beats (“When Cappo Puts The Wheezie On The Barbie”), ballads (“Close the Open Door”), pure pop (“Without You”), revival-meeting gospel (“It Wasn’t My Fault”) and bluesy, jazzy instrumentals (“Sledge Me”) before its 17 tracks are finished.

That diversity is driven by years of playing in wedding, variety bands, where Talanca had to be able to play a wide range of material.

The list of musicians who appear on one or more tracks on the record include Billy Beck and Rick Ward of the Ohio Players, drummer John Sferra of Glass Harp, Steinway artist and jazz pianist Joe Augustine, Todd Maki and the Legacy Scoring Orchestra and dozens of others.

“I’m able to tap into their vibe and it helps what I’m doing,” Talanca said. “It takes more than one person to make something happen. I write the songs and produce them, but the other guys’ input makes it even better than I could do myself.

“Someone like Billy Beck comes in and plays his thing, and it just changes the whole song. The whole direction changes by what someone else brings to it … Sometimes genius comes out and I’ll be jumping out of my chair. ”

“Merry Melody’s” currently can be heard at bandcamp.com and purchased there as a digital release. Talanca said CDs should be out by late spring / early summer. And more music is coming.

“I have 30 songs I’m going through right now trying to decide on the 20 I want to work on.”