Rick Danko

 Rick Danko,  a founder member of The Band (bass, guitar, vocals, fiddle), would have been 80 today. Sadly he died aged only 56, but was lucky to have survived a car accident in 1968 in which he broke his neck and back in six places, spending months in traction (and delaying The Band's concert debut until a year after the release of their first album, Music from Big Pink). It was Danko who found the pink house on Parnassus Lane in Saugerties, New York, that became known as Big Pink, and it was there that The Band recorded what became known as the 'basement tapes' with Bob Dylan. On The Band's eponymous second album (surely one of the greatest ever made), Danko sang the lead vocal on 'When You Awake' – which is always worth another play...