Clinch Mountain Guitar DVD

Featuring James Alan Shelton and George Shuffler

flat/UncloudyDayGSFeb08

The crosspicking technique in flatpicking consists of intricate "crossings" or skips over adjacent strings with almost fingerstyle versatility, but with considerably more drive and punch to it. The technique can be used to produce stunning lead lines, heart-stopping vocal accompaniment and creative fills.

In Clinch Mountain Guitar, a one-hour instructional DVD, James Alan Shelton and George Shuffler demonstrate and teach the guitar techniques that helped change the role of the guitar in bluegrass music, with crosspicking playing an integral part.

Flatpicking Guitar magazine editor Dan Miller wrote extensively about both crosspicking and George Shuffler in his "History of Flatpicking Guitar in the USA" series featured in Guitar Sessions from February thorough July 2007. In preparing this month's article, when I asked Dan what was unique about the filming of the Clinch Mountain Guitar DVD, he replied:

The unusual and great honor for me and the production crew was to have someone of George Shuffler's stature in the bluegrass guitar world come out of retirement and agree to perform for the camera- a very rare occasion and opportunity indeed!

In his flatpicking history series, which is well worth a second look before it drops off our 1-year archive, Dan wrote:

George Shuffler's lead guitar work with the Stanley Brothers in the 1950s is historically significant because George was perhaps the first guitar player who was regularly featured as a soloist in a bluegrass band. In addition, the "crosspicking" technique that George often used when executing his solos is a technique that has been employed by almost every flatpicker since George's introduction of the technique on guitar during those early Stanley Brothers performances and recordings.

Shuffler was born and raised in Valdese, North Carolina. His first professional job was performing with the Bailey Brothers in Nashville when he was just seventeen years old. After leaving the Bailey Brothers and subsequently working with several other bands, George eventually got a call from Carter Stanley in December 1950 and was asked to join the Stanley Brothers band. The Stanley Brothers had begun to use a guitar player on the show at the suggestion of producer Sid Nathan.

When asked about the Stanley's use of a lead guitar player in those early days, George Shuffler said, "Sid Nathan liked the Delmore Brothers and said that they had made a good showing, so he suggested we use some guitar. Bill Napier was the Stanley's mandolin player at the time and he did that first album with them on lead guitar and I played bass on it. He [played] that "Old Mountain Dew" with quick-wrist mandolin licks on the guitar and that is what Carter wanted me to play when I took over on guitar, but I wouldn't do it because that didn't fit the guitar as far as I was concerned.

When asked about how he developed his crosspicking style, George said, "When we went out a lot of times it was just the three of us, Ralph, Carter, and myself. Back then, all there was on lead guitar was Maybelle Carter and Merle Travis, and neither one of those styles fit what the Stanleys sang. They sang those slow, mournful mountain songs with long dwells at the end of a line. That crosspicking roll filled in when they stopped to swallow and get their breath. Little single-string stuff just wouldn't fill it in. The crosspicking roll would make it full and solid. Since it was just the three of us, God knows we needed all the help we could get. We had to make every lick count."

Note that while many flatpickers alternate the direction of the pick strokes when they are crosspicking, George typically plays two down-strokes followed by one upstroke. When asked if this is the pattern he has always used, George said,

Yes. That is the only way you can do it. There was another fella that did it a little different, but there was a jump, or a lope, in it. It wasn't solid. When you go "two down and one up" it is just as solid as a rock. The main thing is that you try to keep ahead on your chord progressions when you are going to change because you've got to break your lick. I've learned to change the chord and just keep rolling.

Out of necessity, George Shuffler invented the crosspicking style while playing with the Stanley Brothers back in the 1950s; James Alan Shelton, the current guitar player for Ralph Stanley, is the logical heir to the "Stanley/Shuffler guitar legacy." It will be interesting to see where things go from here with the legacy in such capable hands.

Stephen Rekas

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