The Songaminute Man: How Music Brought My Father Home Again

Summary

From the father-son singing sensation that took social media by storm, The Songaminute Man is an inspiring memoir about family, memory, and finding hope against all odds.

Eighty-year-old Ted McDermott enjoyed a long career as an entertainer before his Alzheimer’s diagnosis in 2013. After the disease took its toll on Ted’s relationships, memory, and mood, his son Simon found a unique way for them to connect again: carpool karaoke. While Ted sometimes couldn’t recognize members of his own family, he could miraculously remember song lyrics from his past, and so the two men would enjoy singing together songs like “Quando, Quando, Quando.”

Simon filmed the pair’s joyful singing and the video went viral, garnering over 250 million views and touching people’s hearts around the world.

Charting Ted’s incredible life against the backdrop of 1940s Britain to the present day—from his beginnings as the eldest of fourteen children to the record deal that saw Ted’s voice hit the airwaves at the grand age of eighty—The Songaminute Man is a moving story of the devastating effects of Alzheimer’s, the power of music, and the unbreakable bonds of family.