John McDermott

Celtic balladeer John McDermott entered the world in Scotland, yet after his family moved to Canada in the mid-'60s he refined his crystalline tenor at Toronto's St. Michael's Choir School. Upon graduation he took a job as circulation manager at a Toronto newspaper, only to be discovered singing at a private party; publishing magnate Conrad Black soon became a friend and underwrote the recording sessions that produced the singer's smash 1992 debut, Danny Boy, an album first conceived as a present for his parents' golden wedding anniversary. Old Friends arrived in 1994, followed a year later by Christmas Memories. The 1996 release Love Is a Voyage brought a Juno Award nomination for Male Vocalist of the Year. When I Grow Too Old to Dream surfaced in 1997, and the following year he returned with If Ye Break Faith -- We Shall Not Sleep, later retitled Remembrance for the American market. Between 1998 and 2006 McDermott issued Old Friends, Time to Remember, Celtic Tenor, Love Is a Voyage, and the compilation Timeless Memories: Greatest Hits. During those years he rejoined Irish Tenors Finbar Wright and Anthony Kearns, cutting the 2005 album Deus Meus with the trio and touring the United States in 2004. By 2007 he had completed three further albums and an EP: O Canada, When I Grow Too Old to Dream, On a Whim: Songs of Ron Sexsmith, and Daughter of Mine.