George Shuffler - Cross Picking

(Red Hill Records RHR-8181) 1990 / (Freeland Recording Co. FRC-CD-657) 1998

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This was originally a cassette release, which was advertised in the Dec. 1990 edition of 'Bluegrass Limited' and reviewed the following month. It was reissued in 1998 on CD, with the tracks in a different order by Dick Freeland. There is also a 7" EP with a very similiar title ("George Shuffler (Crosspicking)") with a different catalogue number (U-27811M), which has seven of the ten tracks and almost identical track times... I'm guessing this must have been produced around the same time as the cassette, but there's no mention of it in the 'BU' review/advert.

The album runs to 18:15 mins (inc. gaps) and contains instrumentals with George playing both guitar and bass. Aside from Little Rosewood Casket, which is finger-picked, the remaining nine cuts are all played in George's 'cross-picking' style, which is based on hitting the strings in a "down down up" pattern to play arpeggio's. And as the liner notes point out:- "In addition to keeping up the rolling rhythm, cross picking often requires the player to cross over one or more strings to keep the melody line woven into the mix. As George is fond of saying, 'cross-picking isn't worth a dime without the melody.'"

Given the short playing time, and by default rather repetitive nature of the tracks (i.e. it's just guitar / bass), this one is probably of most interest to guitar players wanting to study on George's style.

• George Shuffler: guitar, bass

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