IIRC John is over the bridge in the nice part of "town". 

At least I got a coast to coast weather report.

:-)
 
Is there any thing you really want help with? I think of you as a perfectly capable sort of person... 
 
I find the transition from pre production to production can range from super easy to something akin to walking through a field of land mines. It really depends on what the musician is up for.
 
The first things I try to figure out is:
 
1) Does the musician have any experience and resulting skill playing to a metronome or click track.
2) Is the musician in the practice of, and capable of, playing an overdub to a previously recorded track (as opposed to playing simultaneously with living breathing musicians)
3) When the musician says "we can punch that in" do they have any idea how to perform a punch in.
4) If the musician confidently announces that they can play to click track, can they quickly tell you (with accuracy) what the bpm of the song at hand is (If not... take that as a clue that they haven't been practicing to a click track)
 
 
When I think I have a handle on that I try to proceed with a work flow that adapts to the musician's strengths and avoids their weaknesses.
 
Some musicians get it (the multi track recording process) and it is really easy to crash through the process and some want to get it but don't practice being a studio cat enough to pull off studio work.
 
The first step when moving into the production phase is to identify what is going to be the best "scratch track". That can be a nice singer songwriter demo recording, a raw metronome click, or maybe some basic chords playing on a synth/sampler... it all depends on what the musician is bringing to the table.
 
 
 
Other than that... I hope that maybe you will post some specific questions if/as they occur to you, and maybe someone can offer some help.
 
 
 
 
 
Oh yeah, I have one last guideline... lately I have limited projects to 3 songs actively being worked on at a time just to make it easier to stay focused on the project.

Thanks Mike, you hit one of my questions right away. What about a click track. Right now the talent is coffee house level. He sings and plays. The songs are pretty good but something like a click reveals that his time drifts with the mood he's in. I mentioned right away that using a click would be needed if he wanted to bring in musicians for tracking. Most of my contacts are pro's and they may not want to deal with an amateur that  doesn't know the ropes.
 
Since he is so adverse to a click I was hoping that I could extract the tempo directly from a track. I'm just as much of an amateur in these things as he is. My ears are good so I'm confident that I can do the mixing. For mastering, I have a number of really good studio's to work with. In my experience we always did bass and drum beds first. In this case, he wants to use vocal and guitar for beds and add everything else, thus the need for a click.
 
I'll sort it out in time. Thanks for the comments.