The Divine Miss M accepted the honor in Tulsa on Friday night, talked art and activism, and closed the argument the Guthrie way: by singing.
By The Superfan — CelebnMusic247
Some honors are about sales. This one is about spine. The Bette Midler Woody Guthrie Prize was presented on Friday night, October 16, at Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa, Oklahoma, at a celebration hosted by the Woody Guthrie Center, where Bette Midler received the 2026 honor — an award given, per the Center, for embodying Guthrie’s social-conscience legacy through humanitarianism, entertaining and message.
Midler spent part of the evening in on-stage conversation about art and activism with music journalist Rona Elliot, and delivered the night’s defining line herself: “Justice doesn’t always come from the courthouse… Justice comes from a beat-up guitar instead.” Then she proved the thesis, bringing the crowd to its feet with a surprise performance of her version of Guthrie’s 1940 protest song “All You Fascists (Bound to Lose)” — a deep-cut choice that told everyone in the room she had not come to Tulsa for a photo opportunity.
The program balanced legacy and future deliberately. Remarks came from Guthrie’s granddaughter Anna Canoni and Woody Guthrie Center Senior Director Cady Shaw, and rising country star Bryan Andrews closed the night with a solo acoustic set — “Yeehaw,” “Man in Black,” “Backwoods Backwards” and “Daughter’s Plea” — ending in a room-wide singalong of “This Land Is Your Land,” which remains the most reliable finale in American music.
The evening also raised funds for the Center’s educational programs, public concerts, exhibitions and preservation of Guthrie’s legacy, aided by a silent auction featuring a signed ukulele from Midler’s personal collection, a signed Bob Dylan lithograph, rare Dylan prints, an Oklahoma City Thunder premium ticket package and tickets to an upcoming Garth Brooks Tulsa show.
Bette Midler Woody Guthrie Prize: Why the Fit Looks Perfect
Midler’s career — Broadway, film, Grammy-winning records, decades of visible activism — makes her an unusually complete fit for a prize named for a songwriter who believed a song could be a weapon and a shelter at the same time. On Friday night in Tulsa, with a beat-up guitar’s worth of history in the room, the fit looked perfect.
Sources: Sacks & Co. press release (via CelebnMusic247 PR Desk digest 2026-10-18) | Woody Guthrie Center
