Striking a balance between ethnography, history, and musicology, Yankee Twang provides a new perspective on the history of American country music. Murphy argues that what began as a regionally diverse musical form became more homogenized in sound and in regional association with the commercial dominance of the Country Music Association in Nashville, Tennessee. While many historians of the genre have focussed on the South, Murphy turns his attention to New England, tracing major currents in regional country and western music from the Depression era through the early 1980s. Through interviews with musicians and descriptions of his experiences attending musical events, Murphy provides a richly detailed picture of how country music developed and operated in New England from the perspectives of both performers and audience members.

Opening with a refutation of Bill Monroe's “southern thesis,” which situates the locus of country music in the South (a refutation in which he uses Nashville as a synecdoche for the entire region a bit too easily), Murphy argues that the country musicians of New England laid the same claim to “cultural authenticity” as their southern compatriots. While southern musicians may have enjoyed popularity in the region, they did not initiate “country music making in New England” (24). After establishing the distinctiveness of this region's country music through a detailed discussion of musical and vocal styles, Murphy situates the developments that he will chronicle through the rest of the book in a broader history of the genre during the twentieth century, with a particular emphasis on the “Barnstorming Era” from the end of World War II through the mid-1950s. The decline of this era coincided with a decline in working-class economic prospects in New England (and throughout the North) with the rise of deindustrialization during the 1960s – the same time that regional musicians became silenced on country music radio as the Nashville sound secured its commercial dominance. Yet New England country music certainly did not die, and Murphy describes the musicians who continued to record and perform in the region, even as their music became restricted to New England and southeastern Canada.

In the second half of the book, Murphy shifts from a historical account to a sociological and ethnographic study of the communities that developed from a shared musical interest and working-class experience, even as the members came from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. What made the country music experience distinctive was that it was rooted in community – nurtured by live performance “events” in community halls with audience participation – rather than being something heard solely on the radio. While the audiences and the performers illustrated the diversity of white ethnic groups in the region, there was a certain degree of cultural homogeneity and “Americanizing” among the performers. Many second-generation musicians anglicized their names and adopted personas associated with the frontier West. One popular musician, Lone Pine, did create a persona that was rooted in the region; but Lone Pine romanticized his home state of Maine “as an exotic and authentic frontier region” (134).

After detailing the economic motivations for becoming a country musician in New England, as well as the daily grind of musical work and the toll that the life took on the musicians and their families, Murphy returns to his initial questions of why country music from New England is frequently overlooked in studies of the genre. It is when exploring these questions that Murphy's narrative loses some of the critical depth that he displays when analyzing the music and the region itself. While acknowledging that the term “authenticity” is contested among scholars, Murphy maintains that it is a significant concept in the country music community of New England. However, as much as he cites its importance, he does not provide a strong definition of “authenticity” in this context. Did a musician have to hail from New England to be considered authentic? Did one have to come from and speak to the working-class experience? Murphy concludes that according to some (especially fans of alternative country), musicians from northern New England were more “pure” or “natural” – i.e. authentic – than those from southern New England and the rest of the country (172). Even within this region, “authenticity” was disputed, which makes the need for a clearer understanding of what exactly authenticity entailed even more urgent.

Overall, Murphy's study provides an important contribution to the complex history of American country music. By adopting a multidisciplinary approach, Murphy sheds considerable light on the diversity of the genre from a variety of angles while acknowledging “there are many more stories to tell” (29).