WOODY GUTHRIE PRIZE
The Woody Guthrie Prize is given annually to an artist who best exemplifies Woody Guthrie’s spirit and work by speaking for the less fortunate through music, film, literature, dance or other art forms and serving as a positive force for social change.
BUGHOUSE was commissioned to design the award for the Woody Guthrie Prize. The design was based on Guthrie’s famous Gibson-L00 guitar emblazoned with the statement, “THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS”. THE sculpture was originally carved in wood, made into a wax mold, And cast in bronze.
Woody Guthrie Center: Woody Guthrie Prize
LIST OF PRIOR WINNERS OF THE WOODY GUTHRIE PRIZE
2024 TOM MORELLO
2022 PUSSY RIOT
2021 BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
2020 JOAN BAEZ
2019 CHUCK D
2018 JOHN MELLENCAMP
2017 NORMAN LEAR
2016 KRIS KRISTOFFERSON
2015 MAVIS STAPLES
2014 PETE SEEGER
WOODY GUTHRIE
Woodrow Wilson Guthrie (aka Woody Guthrie) was an American singer-songwriter, whose songs, many of which are now classics, chronicled the plight of common people, especially during the Great Depression.
Among the more than 1,000 songs that Guthrie wrote were a number of remarkable children’s songs as well as some of the most lasting and influential songs in the canon of American music, not least “So Long (It’s Been Good to Know Yuh)”, “Hard Traveling”, “Blowing Down This Old Dusty Road”, “Union Maid”, and (inspired by Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath) “ Tom Joad”. Probably the most famous of his works is “This Land Is Your Land”, which became a pillar of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s.
At the time of his death in 1967, Guthrie had already begun to assume legendary stature as a folk figure, and his influence on such pivotal singer-songwriters as Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen was immense.
