Merging scholarly insight with a professional guitarist's sense of the
musical life, Yankee Twang delves into the rich tradition of country &
western music that is played and loved in the mill towns and cities of
the American northeast. Scholar and musician Clifford R. Murphy draws on
a wealth of ethnographic material, interviews, and encounters with
recorded and live music to reveal the central role of country and
western in the social lives and musical activity of working-class New
Englanders.
As Murphy shows, an extraordinary multiculturalism sets New England
country and western music apart from other regional and national forms.
Once segregated at work and worship, members of different ethnic groups
used the country and western popularized on the radio and by
barnstorming artists to come together at social events, united by a love
of the music. Musicians, meanwhile, drew from the wide variety of ethnic
musical traditions to create the New England style.
But the music also gave--and gives--voice to working-class feeling.
Murphy explores how the Yankee love of country and western emphasizes
the western, reflecting the longing of many blue collar workers for
the mythical cowboy's life of rugged but fulfilling individualism.
Indeed, many New Englanders use country and western to comment on
economic disenfranchisement and express their resentment of a mass
media, government, and Nashville music establishment that they believe
neither reflects their experiences nor considers them equal participants
in American life.
