- Crests Trivia: They were discovered by Al Browne, a popular bandleader in Brooklyn, after Browne's wife heard them singing on the subway.
- Crests Trivia: They were an interracial group with three African American members (one female), one Puerto Rican (Harold Torres), and one Italian American.
- Crests Trivia: Their female member, Patricia Van Dross (1943-1993) was the older sister of R&B singer Luther Vandross.
- Crests Trivia: The Italian-American, Johnny Mastrangelo (1939-2010), was the lead singer. He later changed his name to Johnny Maestro.
- Crests Trivia: Rounding out the group was Talmoudge Gough, a relative of Marvin Gaye, and JT Carter.
- Crests Trivia: Formed by bass vocalist J. T. Carter in the mid-1950s, their first charting single was “Sweetest One”. Their most popular song, "16 Candles", rose to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1959, selling over one million copies.
- Crests Trivia: They had several Top 40 hits in the 50s and 60s on Coed Records, including "16 Candles", "Six Nights a Week", "The Angels Listened In", "A Year Ago Tonight", "Step By Step" and "Trouble in Paradise."
- Crests Trivia: After recording two singles for Joyce Records, Van Dross left The Crests in 1958 to finish her education. Maestro left for a solo career in 1961. Torres left to become a jeweller.
- Crests Trivia: (J. T. Carter on the British Invasion) : "They (American record executives) didn’t know the goal that they really had. I really don’t believe that the people on top knew how good what they had was. ..."
- ... Being Americans, like Americans can be, first, they love it and then they hate it."
- ... The money was the most important thing to them, but they could’ve made so much more money keeping us intact...
- ... Instead of that they played us down and let the British Invasion start. The Beatles were backed by a country, we were back by nobody.
- Crests Trivia: Later, Johnny Maestro recorded with other backup singers under the name "Johnny Maestro & The Crests"
- Crests Trivia: (J. T. Carter on the influence of other Doo-Wop groups) : "The Teenagers were what every group wanted to be. We listened to them and we took their lead because they came on earlier. ...
- .... Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers and The Flamingos were the most important thing that ever happened to rock ‘n’ roll because they’re the ones we all copied. All of us
- Crests Trivia: The 1984 John Hughes teen film Sixteen Candles took its title from The Crests' song, which was re-recorded by The Stray Cats for the Sixteen Candles soundtrack.
- Crests Trivia: In 1987, for a concert in Peekskill, New York, Maestro, Carter, Torres, and Gough reunited as "The Crests". In 1993, Patricia Van Dross died of complications from diabetes. Hal Torres is also deceased.
- Crests Trivia: (J. T. Carter on being an interracial group) : "we were all friends, we didn’t know there was a difference between us at all,..."
- .... "we loved each other, we sang together, we played together, we looked out for each other, it was a heaven sent childhood."
