Simon McDermott put the disc in the machine, sat his father down to listen to it and watched the old man’s face as the familiar rendition of You Make Me Feel So Young swept them both away.
Teddy, who is 80, toe-tapped his way through the song, and joined in himself with the words, matching every phrase with precision.
‘That’s a good singer, that is,’ he said, at the end, with a nod to the machine, and Simon didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Teddy, who is 80, at the recording studio. Teddy’s version of the old Frank Sinatra classic is released as a single today, with his stage name Teddy Mac writ large on the cover.
In some ways, it has all happened just as Teddy must have imagined it would: the out-of-the-blue approach from an excited record company executive; the trip to London to record, in a proper studio, with an orchestra, no less; the spine-tingling visit to the famous Abbey Road studios, to witness his very first record being mastered.
‘I said “That’s you, Dad”,’ he explains. ‘But he didn’t know it was his voice. That’s the way it is with this thing. You can explain something to him but it goes in one ear and out the other.
‘He doesn’t remember who he is. He doesn’t know me. We will be sitting chatting in the car, normal as anything, and he’ll call me Simon, but in the next breath, he will say, “isn’t that funny. I’ve got a son called Simon. He lives in London”. It breaks my heart that he isn’t here to see this, but he isn’t. Not 100 percent here anyway.’
Teddy’s version of the old Frank Sinatra classic is released as a single today, with his stage name Teddy Mac writ large on the cover. The old-school entertainer, a former Butlin’s redcoat who has spent his whole life singing in working men’s clubs, singing in the bath, singing for family and friends, dreaming of his big break, will finally get it.
In some ways, it has all happened just as Teddy must have imagined it would: the out-of-the-blue approach from an excited record company executive; the trip to London to record, in a proper studio, with an orchestra, no less; the spine-tingling visit to the famous Abbey Road studios, to witness his very first record being mastered; the trip back home to Blackburn clutching a newly-pressed vinyl version.
Yet the man who is surely Britain’s oldest rookie recording star is oblivious to it all. For Ted has Alzheimer’s. Indeed (‘and isn’t this the big irony,’ says his only son), it is Alzheimer’s that has finally brought him the success he always wanted.
Ted McDermott in his days working at Butlins. He was known at the SongAMinute man because of his huge memory for songs.
Over the summer Ted became something of an internet sensation when footage of him having a car singalong with Simon became a YouTube hit – and he got a record deal.
Over the summer Ted became something of an internet sensation when footage of him having a car singalong with Simon became a YouTube hit.
Are you familiar with James Corden’s Carpool Karaoke? The British comedy star created it for his Late Late Show in the US and features him driving around with celebs – including Adele and Michele Obama – and belting out songs. Well, this was the Blackpool version and one that came with a knockout emotional punch.
Simon, 40, struggled to come to terms with his father’s slide into dementia after being diagnosed in 2013, and had been encouraging his dad to keep singing for as long as he could, partly because ‘the only time he was Dad again was when he was singing’, partly because he wanted to record his father’s voice for himself.
On a whim, he put his dad’s in-car version of Quando, Quando, Quando on Facebook. His friends, ‘many of whom didn’t even know my dad was a singer’, were gob-smacked, and deeply moved by the sight of father and son singing their hearts out, and forwarded it on.
Simon, 40, struggled to come to terms with his father’s slide into dementia after being diagnosed in 2013 and had been encouraging his dad to keep singing for as long as he could.
