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July 28, 2025 • 15 mins
Interview with John Krondes - The Culture News
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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Ladies and gentlemen, and good afternoon. Welcome of the Culture News.
My name is David, so we Royan have the pleasure
to have to they on I Out Radio the Culture
News a wonderful singer songwriter named John Crundes. Let me
stay it out for you. It's k R NDEs. He
is a wonderful singer songwriter with the Jordanaires and the

(00:23):
Elvis hit making team. Of course you're gonna understand very quickly,
it's all about Elvis, and we are so happy he
has released a great new track called Summer Souvenirs, which
we are going to stream right at the end of
this interview, because yes, indeed this is an interview and

(00:44):
we are so glad to have the one and only
singer songwriter John Crundes. How are you today, David?

Speaker 2 (00:51):
I'm great, doing very well. How are you? And thank
you for having me on your show.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
It's really a pleasure and an honor. So the first
question I have for you, can you tell us who
are you and how did you stop music in the
first place.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
That's an easy question.

Speaker 3 (01:06):
I'll quote my mother, Florence Crondis, who told everybody she's
been in a few radio interviews. She's passed the twenty
twenty one, but she would tell people that I came
out of the womb making music my father. As they say,
the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Preceding me,
My father, Jimmy Crondis, was a brilliant, award winning hit songwriter,

(01:30):
producer and the record executive. And in fact, my father
wrote this song Summer Souvenirs along with Paul Evans, both
of which they wrote for Elvis and had hits with
many many noted artists th Ol Grant, the Begs, Bobby Vinton,
Jim Nabors, Nancy Sinatra, the Letterman, Skyliners, on and on

(01:52):
and on. They wrote many hit songs. Paul Evans, who
wrote this song with my father, had five number one
hits with Elvis, very big songs. And this was a
song that was actually shown to Elvis.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
You know.

Speaker 3 (02:05):
They wrote a lot of songs that they pitched to Elvis,
which I'm ending up recording for the very first time.
And Elvis had a very short life span. He died
at forty two. But going back a couple seconds to
answer your question completely, in every house that I was
that I lived in since I was born, there was
a recording studio, a custom recording studio in the basement,

(02:29):
and my mother used to say that when my father
he was making records and making demos and things of
the songs that I'm recording. And my mother would say
that I would stop crying as a baby when I
was three six months old when she would take me
down to the studio when they had recording sessions, and
I would sit and listen to the music, and that

(02:51):
would calm me and I would stop crying. So I
started singing, actually at seven years old. My father wrote
some songs that were hits with Harvey Comics, and they
wrote songs about the cartoon characters, and I sang song
Baby Hueie the Baby Giant Duck, which sold millions of
copies of records with Harvey Comics they advertised in those

(03:15):
comic book covers when I was seven years old. So
I grew up watching my father make records and write music.
And my father taught me how to write music. Although
I asked, how do you write music? He said it
comes from God, and he's absolutely right. But so that's
my answer is that I grew up in the studio

(03:36):
and this was part of my life, and I grew
up with this. My father trained me to make records
and to write like he did.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
And indeed, what a beautiful journey. And of course we
have a big thought for your parents and for your
father who has contributed so much to these beautiful craft
of songwriting. So now fast forwarding and it'll bit too
summer souvenir. And also let's talk also about the jordan

(04:07):
Air the Elvis hit making team. Can you tell us
more a bit?

Speaker 2 (04:12):
Absolutely well?

Speaker 3 (04:13):
The Jordanaires, they were a gospel country vocal group that
sang most notably people remember them from singing with Elvis.
They were on the Ed Sullivan Show, I think it
was nineteen fifty six or something, singing hound Dog with
Elvis and the Jordanaires. They backed up Elvis before my time.

(04:34):
They backed up Elvis from nineteen fifty six until nineteen seventy,
and they recorded like four hundred and fifty recordings with
Elvis and performed live with him on certain shows up
until nineteen seventy. A lot of these early notable songs
that Elvis recorded, a lot of his hits were the

(04:54):
Jordanaires singing those beautiful harmonies with him. Can't help falling
in Love as an example, it's Now or Never as
many many of those beautiful songs, that's the Jordanaires and
they're beautiful harmonies. They also sang with Patsy Klein. The
Jordanaires are inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame,
the Gospel Music Hall of Fame, and the Rockabilly Hall

(05:16):
of Fame. And on these recordings, along with the Jordanaires
on Summer Souvenirs, we have all original Elvis musicians on
this particular track.

Speaker 2 (05:28):
We have they were.

Speaker 3 (05:29):
Called the American Sound Studio Band, and this is the
entire band that recorded Suspicious Minds with Elvis Presley and
other hits too. Suspicious Minds was Elvis Presley's last number
one hit recorded in nineteen sixty nine with these exact
same musicians, and we also have Elvis Presley's horn section

(05:50):
on this recording.

Speaker 1 (05:52):
And indeed, it's a beautiful work that you have done here.
We really love this song Souvenir. What a beautiful trick
by the one singer songwriter John Krondesk with the Jordanaires
and the Elvis heat making team. I have an idea

(06:14):
more or less of the answert, but I would love
to hear you saying it what Elvi's means to you.

Speaker 3 (06:21):
Elvis is part of my life. And I'll tell you
the quick version of this story that people say, the
more people that get involved in the radio stations, the promoters,
that the story is as crazy and beautiful as the music.
The music is very powerful. I'm just in the middle
of this, but this was not an accident. Ray Walker

(06:44):
from the Jordanaires has done radio interviews and frequently people
ask this question, how did this come to be? How
did you find each other? And our answer is, we
have no idea. This was a gift from God. This
was rock and roll heaven. I actually met the jordan
Airs by introduction and when I started recording my very

(07:05):
first recording, commercial recording, The End, also known as at
the End of a Rainbow, that was also written by
my father, Jimmy Krondas and said Jacobson, that was Earl
Grant's first big hit and many many artists had very
big hits with this song. And I started recording a
new arrangement of my father's song The End, and I

(07:27):
showed it to a very famous arranger, George Andrews in
New York City and He listened to the song and
he had this blank stare at me for three seconds
and said, do you want to know what I think
of it? And I get asked. I thought he was
going to tell me it's no good, Go drive a truck.
And he started laughing hysterically and said I love it.

(07:47):
And he said and he pointed at me and said,
you sound like Elvis, started laughing again and said, now
who's going to sing with you? And started laughing hysterically
like he was going to fall off his chair. I said, Georgia,
I'm not quite sure I'm understanding your response.

Speaker 2 (08:02):
And he says, you need a.

Speaker 3 (08:04):
Gospel vocal group like Elvis. That's what I hear. You know,
somebody liked the Jordanaires behind you, and you know, as
soon as he said that a couple of weeks weeks later,
the track ended up in the hands of Ray Walker.
The Jordanaires was shown to them through Sony Music, where
I started recording the end over there and at the

(08:25):
Hip Factory in New York, and they called back and said,
we like the song, and we liked John's voice, and
we'd love to try a session with him. They were
in Las Vegas at the time recording a Patsy Klein tribute.
So I flew out to Las Vegas with the engineer
Dixon Van Winkle from Sony Music, and we had already

(08:46):
started recording the track and had the strings and the
horns on there, and the Jordanaires.

Speaker 2 (08:52):
It was like magic.

Speaker 3 (08:53):
They fit like a glove with my voice, with the music,
the style of music, and obviously was written by my father,
and Elvis himself sang that song the end that was
written by my father, Elvis Presley Shows at the End
of a Rainbow, written by my dad Jimmy Krondis. He
sang that song, that very same song to Priscilla, his

(09:15):
future wife, Priscilla Baliu on the very night they met
in Germany in nineteen fifty fifty nine. And decades later
I ended up meeting the jordan Aires. We completed that track,
the song was released, and from day one we were
getting calls the promoters from radio stations and people connected
to Elvis started calling me through my manager through promoters,

(09:38):
saying we want to meet John, We'd like to try
to make some more music.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
And this is how this started. It was just electric.

Speaker 3 (09:46):
It just took on its own life and soon after
I ended up getting a call from Joe Esposito, who
was Elvis Presley's best friend and road manager for twenty years,
who became my manager and the head of this project.
He heard about this and flew me into Los Angeles
to hear a few of these songs. I started recording
with Elvis's musicians, and he started to cry and grabbed

(10:08):
my arm and twisted it like he was gonna break it,
and said, I can't believe what I'm hearing. Elvis was
my best friend. I closed my eyes and I thought
I heard Elvis. He says, I'm going to help you,
and the whole thing is just a very powerful gift.
And I've been told that I'm carrying on Elvis's legacy

(10:30):
and my father's legacy. Joe Esposito said to me that,
you know, Elvis died like a baby forty two years old,
and my father died at fifty nine and left me
truckloads of all these beautiful songs to do something with
and to record. And what he said to me was
that their lifetime was not long enough, and You've been
gifted this project to carry on the music and finish

(10:53):
both Elvis's and my father's unfinished life work and that's
the God's honest truth. And we ended up meeting through
this project everybody that played with Elvis that was still alive,
the TCBD band who toured with Elvis till he died,
the American Sound Studio band who's on this particular track,
and we have several more we're just getting started. The Jordanaires,

(11:16):
the Sweet Inspirations, Elvis's Girls, the Imperials, the Stamps, all
his vocal groups. DJ Fontana, Elvis's first drummer, is in
this project, the horn section. It's just absolutely amazing and
the music is so powerful people can't believe what they're hearing.

Speaker 1 (11:36):
Thank you so much, you know, for sharing this beautiful story,
because it's really a time capsule. You know that we
hear because it is such a wonderful era where music
was music and where there was such a connections among people,
recommendation from one musician to the other and calling each other, Hey,

(12:02):
can you come to the session tomorrow?

Speaker 2 (12:04):
Yeah? Sure.

Speaker 1 (12:05):
It was such a special time and you are taking
us right there with the beautiful souvenirs, as a matter
of fact, and that's why thank you. You know, we
have a summer souvenir. That's a good way to remember,
read by the wonderful singer songwriter John Crantes. Before we
say goodbye to each other, What is next for you?

(12:27):
And do you have a message to tell us?

Speaker 3 (12:30):
Yes, the message is thank you from the bottom of
my heart to all your listeners and to you David
for carrying on the music and projecting this wonderful music
and the story and the energy behind this.

Speaker 2 (12:44):
This is a message. It's a musical message.

Speaker 1 (12:46):
This is the.

Speaker 2 (12:46):
Return of the Memphis sound.

Speaker 3 (12:49):
And we need people like you and your station and
your show to bring this to the world. And I'm
blessed because this just keeps getting bigger and bigger, and
we have the most powerful companies in the music business
that are releasing my music and promoting my music, and
stations all over the world are playing this, and fans
are starting to hear this and grasp what this really is.

(13:12):
This is, like you said, it's a time capsule. It's
back to the future. It's like if Elvis woke up
out of a forty five or whatever year sleep he's
been in and back in the studio with the same musicians.
It's new music, but it has a distinct sound. They
call it this the Memphis Sound, the Memphis Rock. It's

(13:34):
back after decades of silence. It's very beautiful, very powerful,
and we have almost one hundred songs, so keep stay tuned, folks.
We have many more songs to come. And that's what
I wish. That's my life, My whole life is into this.
So what I want is for everybody in the world
to enjoy this, to hear this, experience this music.

Speaker 2 (13:58):
In the next chapter of the Memphis Sound.

Speaker 1 (14:01):
Well, we'll be there definitely to support you and to
play your beautiful music. Thank you for your wonderful words
towards me and the show. That really meant a lot,
So really thank you to you.

Speaker 4 (14:13):
It really it's beautiful to hear people like you making
music and doing it the right way with great musicians,
and we love that.

Speaker 1 (14:24):
And this is your show, ladies and gentlemen. My name
is David So I had the pleasure to have today
over the from the wonderful John Crowndess. John Crowndest, who
is a great singer songwriter from a great, great, great
family of musician. As you can hear, he has released
with the Jordanaires and the Elvis Hit Making Team a

(14:47):
beautiful new track called Summer Souvenir, which we're so proud
to play right here. So listen to the music of
John but also the music of Elvis. It can only
get better. I wish you well and have a lovely night.
It's a beautiful day in New York City. Stating with
us
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