U2's bass player Adam Clayton was recently awarded the MAP Fund Stevie Ray Vaughan Award by MusiCares.
“If you walk away, walk away. I will follow.”
With this lyric, written by U2’s Bono when he and the band were themselves just teenagers — still at the outset of a journey that would bring them worldwide stardom and 22 GRAMMY wins — bassist Adam Clayton closed his 2017 MusiCares MAP Fund Stevie Ray Vaughan Award acceptance speech.
Celebrating its 13th year at the PlayStation Theater in New York, the MusiCares MAP Fund benefit concert once again brought together musicians whose lives have all been touched in one way or another by the efforts of MusiCares. Clayton, like the 12 industry icons who have previously accepted the award, was selected for the honor as an acknowledgment of his ongoing commitment to helping himself and others survive addiction and maintain on the path to recovery.
Prior to the award presentation ceremony, the crowd was treated to tribute sets from British singer/songwriter Jack Garratt, and GRAMMY-nominated folk-rock revivalists The Lumineers, after which U2 closed the evening with an intimate three-song set comprising the GRAMMY-winning songs “Stuck In A Moment You Can’t Get Out Of” and “Vertigo,” as well as “I Will Follow,” the first track off of the band’s 1980 debut album, Boy.
