Interview: Benjamin Falcon (You Can Call Me Paul — A Paul Simon Tribute)
Last Father's Day, a dozen highly credentialed Asheville musicians assembled on The Grey Eagle stage to present a set of Paul Simon’s greatest hits. Directed by Jonathan Lloyd, the trombonist behind the JLloyd Mashup, and fronted by drummer-turned-vocalist Benjamin Falcon, the group transported the intergenerational crowd back a few decades with faithful renderings of staples like “Boy in the Bubble,” “50 Ways to Leave your Lover,” and “Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard.” Boomers sang along from their seats, Gen X parents danced with young kids, and curious, PBR-clutching Millennials nodded along.
This wasn’t a Sunday afternoon set from a cobbled-together cover band noodling its way through nostalgia. It was a finely-tuned ensemble authentically recreating, with note-for-note precision, the catalog of a living legend whose percussive phrasing and signature fusion of American folk and world music taps into a very specific emotional frequency for listeners old and new.
Tackling the Simon songbook isn’t for the faint of heart. Brass and choral arrangements, key changes, polyrhythmic textures, and obscure instrumentation and time signatures demand both quantity and quality. The project now billed as You Can Call Me Paul — a play on the title of a beloved Simon track from the mid-‘80s — brings both to its closest-thing-to-the-real-thing performances.
It all started in July 2022, when Falcon sang a handful of Simon songs with the JLloyd Mashup as part of the collective’s Monday night residency at One World West. The crowd’s positive response inspired Falcon and Lloyd to curate a full show around the concept. The group has since graduated to larger-capacity venues and attracted nationally touring collaborators like percussionist Jason Hann of The String Cheese Incident, who sits in for a Sunday, June 8, show at the Diana Wortham Theatre.
Asheville Stages spoke with Falcon about the serendipitous origins and evolution of the band, the logistical and technical challenges of pulling off a Simon tribute, and how he and his bandmates thread the needle between throwback appeal and performance art.
Jay Moye: Did you have a vision for this project heading into that Monday Night Mashup or have things grown organically from show to show?
Benjamin Falcon: I’d thought about doing it for years but had never put the effort into trying to arrange it. When Jonathan asked if I wanted to be a guest at the Monday Night Mashup, he was actually wanting me to play drums, which wasn't as appealing to me. When I asked if I could sing instead, he kind of looked at me like, “That's not what I offered you, but what do you have in mind?” After thinking about it for a few hours, it occurred to me that I’d done a couple Paul Simon songs in other groups as a vocalist, from behind the drum set. And with the Mashup lineup having horns and percussion, it seemed like the perfect match. He agreed, and I think we did six or eight songs that night. It felt great, and the response was positive, but at that point I still didn’t necessarily think it would blossom.
JM: You have a music degree from UNC Asheville and have made your mark here as a drummer. Given the role of rhythm in Simon's music, was your training and experience as a percussionist a natural segue to singing these songs?
BF: I don't know if it was a natural segue, but I started playing drums when I was eight years old in a scholastic program — a symphonic, concert band. I also did chorus and musical theater at that time, but didn’t see myself as a singer. I moved to Charlottesville, Virginia, when I was 18 and started playing in bands. That’s when I started to become more interested in singing, mainly as a tool of expression and not necessarily with the aim of performing — and certainly not with the goal of being a lead singer. I started singing from behind the drum set and would occasionally sit in and sing with other performers. I’d never sang standing in front of a band until that Mashup. As it turns out, it’s way easier to sing if you're not playing drums.
JM: Did your parents introduce you to Paul Simon’s music growing up?
BF: They did. It's not like they were enthusiasts or intentionally turned me on to his music, but they certainly enjoyed it, having grown up in the ‘50s and ‘60s. I’d be on my way to soccer practice and they’d have the oldies station on in the car — that sort of thing. It wasn't until I got to Charlottesville and started searching out artists through [peer-to-peer file-sharing applications] LimeWire and Napster that I got a better grasp of Simon & Garfunkel and the solo Paul Simon stuff.
JM: Have you seen him live?
BF: A [real estate] client took me to a show in Simpsonville, South Carolina, in 2018 or 2019. At that time, I wasn’t thinking of doing a Paul Simon tribute, so it's good to have gotten to see him live.
JM: He recently returned to the road [for the first time since announcing his retirement from touring in 2018 due to hearing loss]. Does that affect what you guys are doing?
BF: I certainly don't think it hurts. If anything, it reintroduces his music into the public’s awareness. I think it's great he’s back out there for a number of reasons. Vic [Stafford], our drummer, saw him a few weeks ago in Nashville [at the Ryman Auditorium] and loved it. I told him to take notes.
JM: Your voice is so suited to sing Paul Simon songs. The resemblance is uncanny; you’re his vocal doppelganger. Was there an “aha” moment where you realized, “I can really do this justice!”?
BF: Before the first Mashup, I'd only sang “Mother and Child Reunion,” which I did with Empire Strikes Brass when I toured with them for a run back in 2018 or ‘19, and “Diamonds on the Souls of Her Shoes.” I can't quite remember how I stumbled on that one, but it was easy for me to play the drums and sing because it’s a very linear pattern.
But I never thought I sounded like Paul Simon and still don’t. The songs just felt approachable, and I didn’t have to push too hard. When I hear a recording of me singing his songs, I think I sound like me and not him. But I’m trying to approach his timbre as much as I can and paying close attention to his phrasing and the contours of his melodies. Nailing those things and approximating the tone is enough to fool people.
JM: Your repertoire is now up to 20-plus songs, so you're fairly deep into the songbook at this point. What's the most challenging part of singing these tunes?
BF: Certain songs are more challenging for me, physically. Some are harder to sing because they have longer, more sustained notes I really have to focus on to make sure they're even and clear, not to mention the correct pitch. They’re also some acrobatic-type moments — a big jump from a low to a high pitch or the reverse, or a transition from a dense passage to a smoother section — where it’s hard to adjust. And I have to remember the lyrics and deliver them smoothly. If you're going to emote, you have to know what the hell you're saying. [laughs]
JM: I interviewed Jonathan just over a year ago, and he explained how you guys didn’t rehearse for your first few gigs. Stepping onstage cold to do these intricately arranged songs, particularly the Graceland stuff, sounds terrifying.
BF: Totally nuts. It's funny to think back at how reckless we were those first shows. We all come from that school where we're expected to study independently and be ready to go, but that’s certainly not a smart approach with this big of a band and this type of material. It’s a miracle we pulled it off as well as we did.
JM: Did you have to learn the songs after deciding to make a go of it?
BF: I’d never even heard some of the songs we do. I don’t remember hearing “One Trick Pony” until I was looking through his catalog trying to find songs that match the energy of the Graceland stuff, as far as not being too folky or downtempo. I wanted to make sure we were not only playing his best material, but also upbeat, funky tunes with horns and percussion. I’d never discovered that song, which is the title track of that rrecord, even though I’d heard “Late in the Evening” from that record many times.
JM: What does the post-show audit look like for you, in terms of listening back to soundboard recordings and thinking about changes to make? Is the intent to keep every show fresh or just sharpen the set?
BF: I like to post-game and figure out what worked and what didn't. That’s my approach to performance in general. I listen for what's not translating or grooving as hard as it could so I can think about how to improve. Each of our shows has been a little different, whether adding or taking tunes away, changing the order of the set, or tweaking an arrangement here and there. But since we're not doing this very frequently, it’s more about sharpening, as you put it.
JM: You’re pretty faithful to the recorded versions, but I'm sure there's fun to be had pulling together the setlist and working through arrangements and lineups.
BF: I have to keep going back and analyzing his records, because if I don't, I’ll end up doing things my own way and finding my own little ornamentations — usually things like how we end a song, sticking a solo somewhere, or repeating a chorus. Nothing as egregious as changing a melody. I also lift some things from Paul Simon's live recordings, like little ad-libs. But I try to prevent myself from doing too much of that, because while it’s good to own it and have your own spin, this isn’t a cover band. It’s a tribute band. When I feel myself starting to stray too far, I pull it back in.
JM: Is it safe to say that Graceland is the North Star of what you’re after with the group?
BF: Yes. But I wouldn't say for sure that I fell in love with Graceland prior to hearing songs like “Kodachrome” or others that predate that album. I love Graceland, for sure, and I do think it’s probably his most seminal achievement, but it's more about wanting to do the more danceable material.
The second full show we did was at Asheville Music Hall [in January 2023], and we did half Paul Simon solo stuff and half Simon & Garfunkel. I enjoy doing that material, but it seemed hard to strike a balance in the show. You either need to split things up and do one set of the folky stuff and one of the upbeat stuff. When you try to blend them together, it becomes too much of a peak-and-valley situation.
JM: You’d also have to find an Art Garfunkel in Asheville to pull that off, I guess.
BF: I think I have one, actually. Daniel Shearin [of River Whyless] is a friend of mine. I’d always known he was an amazing singer and that his range exceeded mine, but it wasn’t until we had him open a show that I knew he shared a love for the material. So, if I ever try to do a Simon & Garfunkel thing, I’d tap him to do it with me.
JM: You play drums in a Phish tribute [Fee Fi Phaux Phish] Thursday nights at One World West, and have played in just about every Grateful Dead tribute band in town [Dirty Dead, Grateful Family Band, Cosmic Charlie, Phuncle Sam]. How does the hand you have in those groups serve what you do with the Simon tribute, or are they totally separate?
BF: I credit the Phish tribute performances over the past five years with helping whip my ear into shape. When I started to get into their catalog, I began singing more backup. That material was ingrained in my head because I’d been listening to it since I was a teenager, which helped me hear the harmony parts better. The repetition of singing every week helped unlock my ear in a way that has enabled me to sing harmony more consistently without having to constantly train myself. I don't sing harmony much with the Paul Simon thing, but it comes into play when we're rehearsing and working out harmonies, or in the moments when I need to blend with the band in more of a choral section.
JM: Jason Hann of String Cheese Incident is sitting in for your upcoming show at the Wortham. How’d that connection come to be, and why did you want him in the mix?
BF: I was at a dinner party telling some friends about the show. And they said, “Oh, Jason is staying with us that weekend because he's playing with Keller Williams the previous night at Pisgah [Brewing Co.].” It flashed into my head that it could be an interesting opportunity. A few hours later, we were talking on the phone and he said how much he loved the material. Two days later, we had it confirmed. It's a great fit, because most of those tracks have more percussion than we are representing. Jason brings an element we're already lacking, and he’s a rare, nationally known percussionist.
JM: What do you want the audience to take away from the show? What are you hoping comes through from stage to seats?
BF: Just the emotional nostalgia of it. I’ve had people react really positively to the show, whether they just enjoyed it or are complimentary of the renditions. This guy, Norm, a big, six-foot-three man told me after a show that at a certain point he cried because it brought him back to a place or made him think about a certain person. It’s not like my performance was so great that somebody cried. It's more that we were able to suspend their disbelief long enough for them to access that memory that only the music being close enough to the original could bring.
IF YOU GO
Who: You Can Call Me Paul – A Paul Simon Tribute
When: Sunday, June 8, 7 p.m.
Where: Diana Wortham Theatre, 18 Biltmore Ave., worthamarts.org
Tickets: $50-65
(Photo by Matt Wegman)
