The Swan (Le Cygne) (Saint-Saens) as a Country waltz

[Mike Neer]

This is the classic Le Cygne (The Swan) by Camille Saint-Saens arranged as a Country waltz.
I had a whole other arrangement going on when it hit me to do it in this style, which in my mind I was going for a Bakersfield kind of vibe, although that might be a delusion. I had also been hearing the accompaniment in the style of Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 prelude, so I came up with a guitar figure to fit that idea. All in all, I like the way this turned out--hope no purists (on either side) are offended.

In this video, I played live into Joe Rogers' capture of Johnny Cox's Sho-Bud single channel amp with a Showman cab IR and recorded directly into Reaper, no editing.

https://youtu.be/KeRRjNtySFM?si=AQUQtW2REFL5ogdi

[Mike Neer]

I just recorded a version straight to video and added to YouTube.

https://youtu.be/KeRRjNtySFM?si=AQUQtW2REFL5ogdi

[Tim Toberer]

Lovely arrangement as usual Mike. You are high on my list of the most original steelers out there.

[Mike Neer]

Thanks, Tim.
After a long career of playing gigs, etc., I am just playing for myself now. This was one of the goals I have been working up to for years, I just never knew the form it would take. First, I wanted to play this stuff on guitar many years ago, but then I got interested in steel guitar.

The steel guitar can be whatever you choose it to be once you have the techniques and ideas. So I focus a lot less on my steel playing anymore, but more on the arranging, and in doing so really just kind of tailoring the sound of my playing. In that way Jerry Byrd is probably my biggest role model of the past few years steel-wise. But really my biggest heroes are the arrangers and orchestrators, like Clare Fischer, Burt Bacharach, Ellington, Oliver Nelson. And being a multi-instrumentalist to some degree has given me the ability to record the arrangements, at least to the extent I can do it to get the vibe across.

Admittedly, it is no fun playing jazz by myself, so I don’t do it. But adding the classics to my repertoire is the single most satisfying thing I have ever done, and I am proud of the results mostly. The best part is that most of these arrangements are just one of several I have for each tune.