CHRIS CORNELL To Honor NEIL DIAMOND At MusiCares Gala

Former AUDIOSLAVE and SOUNDGARDEN singer Chris Cornell will perform at the MusicCares gala in Los Angeles this Friday, February 6, in honor of Neil Diamond, 2009's MusiCares Person of the Year. Other scheduled performers at the annual gala at Los Angeles Convention Center include COLDPLAY and the FOO FIGHTERS. Proceeds from the event provide essential support for MusiCares, which ensures that music people have a place to turn in times of financial, medical and personal need.

Cornell received the Stevie Ray Vaughan Award at the third annual MusiCares MAP Fund benefit concert on May 11, 2007 at the Music Box Theatre in Los Angeles. Cornell was honored for his work with the MAP Fund to help musicians who are recovering addicts. Cornell, who had been clean and sober himself for four and a half years, told The Pulse of Radio what the award meant to him. "Being acknowledged for it, I think, is great, but this isn't a particular situation, we don't do this for the acknowledgement," he said. "I'm happy, you know, for the acknowledgement, I also, I'm very inspired by — Stevie Ray Vaughan, I think, is a very inspiring person, so, like, to be given an award that was named after this guy, you know, and for similar reasons of inspiration, if I can do that for other people, I think that's great."

Cornell admitted to using drugs and alcohol since he was 12 and told The Pulse of Radio what finally led him to check himself into rehab in 2002. "I really had to come to the conclusion, the sort of humbling conclusion that, guess what, I'm no different than anybody else, I've got to sort of ask for help — not something I ever did, ever," he said. "And then part two of that is, like, accept it when it comes and, you know, believe what people tell me. And trusting in what I have been told, and then seeing that work."