Hard Working Americans Share 2013 Recording Of Gil Scott-Heron’s ‘Work For Peace’

Hard Working Americans shared their take on Gil Scott-Heron’s “Work For Peace (The Military & The Monetary),” recorded in 2013 at the supergroup’s first recording session. The track, released to digital platforms, originally appeared as the B-side of their 2013 Record Store Day Black Friday single.

Hard Working Americans was initially composed of bassist Dave Schools and drummer Duane Trucks of Widespread Panic, keyboardist Chad Staehly of Great American Taxi and late guitarist Neal Casal and lead vocalist Todd Snider.

The group’s self-titled debut album – recorded at Bob Weir's TRI Studios in San Rafael, California – consisted of covers and was released in 2014. Multi-instrumentalist Jesse Aycock later joined HWA and appeared on their second and final studio album, 2016’s originals-based Rest In Chaos.

Neal Casal died in 2019 at age 50. Todd Snider died in 2025 at age 59.

The band’s cover of “Work For Peace (The Military and the Monetary),” was recorded in May 2013 at their first recording session at TRI Studios, and was the B-side to their version of “I Don’t Have A Gun” by Will Kimbrough and Tommy Womack that was the A-side of the RSD Black Friday release.

Dave Schools shared his thoughts about HWA taking up “Work For Peace” nearly 13 year ago, recalling:

“At first the idea of doing Gil Scott-Heron’s ‘Work For Peace (The Military & The Monetary)’ seemed almost incongruous to us. After all, it was more of a rap/poem than the rest of the material that made up the first HWA record.

“In the studio it quickly became apparent to those of us who had never worked with him before that Todd Snider could not only turn a phrase but also that he could imbue that phrase with a poet’s innate rhythmic sensibility. And once there’s an inherent rhythm, that poem can be placed into any groove that fits. I think that’s how this songwriting thing works or is supposed to work…LOL.

“The question then became, ‘What kind of groove will fit?’

“The process for creating the first HWA record was taking songs that Snider loved and deconstructing them down to just the lyrics and melody and then rebuilding them into what became our sound.

“Will Kimbrough’s ‘I Don’t Have A Gun’ was reconfigured with a slinky smoky nightclub groove … and Todd discovered that the vibe and tempo felt right for him to deliver the Gil Scott-Heron piece … so when we recorded the master take for Kimbrough’s tune we kept jamming for a while so that Snider would have enough runway to land ‘The Military & The Monetary.’

“Those few days of recording that first HWA record were filled with the kind of lucky and fruitful misadventures that one would expect to occur in Bob Weir’s amazing studio TRI. It all worked out ‘just exactly perfect’ as Weir himself would have said.”

Stream Hard Working Americans’ cover of “Work For Peace (The Military and the Monetary)” here: