Johnny Maestro

Manhattan (Lower East Side) native Johnny Maestro (born John Mastrangelo) has the distinction of being in three top-selling vocal groups dating back to the early days of rock-and-roll: The Del-Satins and The Crests in the 1950s and The Brooklyn Bridge in the 1960s and 1970s. He was the lead singer in The Crests, formed in 1956. That group, renowned for its smooth harmonies that typified the "doo-wop" sound of the 1950s, had several big hits, among them the classic "Sixteen Candles" in 1958, but they also charted with "Step By Step," "The Angels Listened In" and "Trouble in Paradise." Maestro left The Crests in 1960 and recorded on his own (although The Crests backed him up on several of his records). He managed to place some of his songs in the top 20, but his solo career didn't go much beyond that. In 1968 he combined two groups, The Del-Satins--for whom he sang in the 1960s and who had provided back-up on several of Dion DiMucci's hit records in the 1960s--and a Long Island group called Rhythm Method into an 11-piece band and renamed them The Brooklyn Bridge. Their first record was also their biggest, "The Worst That Could Happen." They had some minor hits after that. Maestro continues to appear in oldies shows, both solo and with different versions of The Brooklyn Bridge.