In the not-so-olden days, musicians dreamed of having a big record label swoop in and rescue them from obscurity.

Today, it’s the record labels that are dreaming of rescue, and the odds that more swooping in of any kind will occur are not promising at this point.

Musicians, therefore, have had to get ingenious about furthering their careers.

On Friday, Sunny Taylor will host a party to celebrate the release of her new EP, aka a four-song sampler. It starts at 7 p.m. at C2G Music Hall, 323 W. Baker St., and admission is free.

The party isn’t so much the culmination of one project as it is the launch of a far larger one.

The EP was recorded at Java Jive studio in Nashville, Tenn., and was produced by Mark Hornsby.

The cost of the studio time and the engineering of the songs was covered by Taylor and some of her friends.

Because the amount spent was what a British economist might refer to as a “not inconsiderable sum,” Taylor has devised a new strategy for expanding the EP to album length.

She is going to ask her fans to sign up for house concerts, which would be recitals-of-sorts at intimate get-togethers of the fans’ devising.

Rather than just ask for donations, Taylor said, “We kind of wanted to give something in return. We’re basically saying, ‘You’re paying us for music.’ ”

Taylor said the fee charged for each of these house concerts would depend on duration, travel time, number of attendees and size of backing band.

The cost, she said, would be reasonable regardless of the particulars.

“I love playing venues,” she said. “But a lot of time, the crowd consists of a little group of family and friends and then people who just happened to be there that night.”

Why not, Taylor thought, appeal directly to the people who most like her music?

Taylor said she’d be happy to tailor her concerts to the party-thrower’s specifications with one caveat.

“I’ll do my best to fit into whatever they’re looking for as long as they come into it with the understanding that I will not perform Jimmy Buffett for any amount of money,” she said, laughing.

Taylor said she doesn’t have a fundraising goal or even a ballpark figure. She would like to add at least six more tracks to the existing four and isn’t sure whether she’ll record those six in piecemeal fashion or wait until she has raised enough to record them all at once.

If anybody can pull this off, it’s Taylor.

She will undoubtedly deflect the subsequent praise, but she may be the most beloved singer-songwriter our city has produced.

Not only is she a confident and enthralling performer, but she is what my mother would refer to as “a good egg” – in other words, a genuinely likable human being.

Taylor has resisted pressure over the years to move to a more career-coddling locale so she can focus on raising her family in Fort Wayne.

Taylor said she already feels like a success “in the most important areas of my life.”

“Music is just an added bonus,” she said.

Unfestive fee

Two weeks ago, I reported that Habitat for Humanity this year would be moving Holiday Houses for Habitat – the enormous display of miniature villages that has been part of downtown HolidayFest activities since 2008 – from Grand Wayne Center to Glenbrook Square.

Habitat for Humanity executive director Justin Berger called to say that part of the impetus for this move was that Grand Wayne Center had decided to charge Habitat for Humanity $6,000 for rental of the space this year after charging it nothing in prior years.

Kim Kelso, event manager at Grand Wayne Center, confirmed the imposition of a rental fee, but she said she didn’t know the exact figure.

Kelso said that when Habitat for Humanity took over control of Houses for Habitat from Visit Fort Wayne this year, the event shifted from being tourism-oriented to being charity-oriented.

Dozens of different charities rent space at Grand Wayne Center every year, Kelso said, and the venue could not make an exception for Houses for Habitat without raising the ire of other charitable organizations.

Berger said Habitat for Humanity looked at other possible downtown locales but ultimately decided on the former site of Marshall Field’s in Glenbrook Square because of the mall’s unbeatable holiday foot traffic and the low cost of occupying the space.