The Bluegrass Review

Series produced by Philip Nusbaum

Series image
Image by: Shutterstock 

Bluegrass music's authoritative radio home.

The Bluegrass Review is a weekly 1-hour show which presents bluegrass music in a lively and informative format. Produced in two segments approximately 30 minutes apiece, each complete show is programmed in thematic bursts. For example the sample show #321 includes songs about hard work, guitarists who emphasize the bass end of the guitar's range in their soloing, and an interview with nationally-recognized autoharp player, Karen Mueller. The program includes frequent interviews and produced segments on topics that parallel concerns and interests of Bluegrass musicians and fans.

(PRX Feature Series image from Shutterstock.)


Additional Files

361 Pieces

Order by: Newest First | Oldest First
Caption: Phil w/2013 Zeitfunk, Credit: Karen Van Norman
The show begins with relationship songs, some old and some new. Then it’s on to our first foray into old time music and bluegrass with Lyle Lofgren...

Bought by WRGY, WOUB, KEOS, WNTI.ORG-Internet Radio from Centenary University, KSKQ and more


  • Added: Jun 22, 2014
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 17
Caption: Philip Nusbaum w/ 2012 Zeitfunk           , Credit: Karen Van Norman
We open the show with a couple of songs about lives: The first depicts some kids waling on a dirt road, and wonders about what kinds of people they...

Bought by WOUB, KEOS, WNTI.ORG-Internet Radio from Centenary University, KSKQ, KPVL and more


  • Added: Jun 17, 2014
  • Length: 59:30
  • Purchases: 16
Caption: Philip Nusbaum w/ 2012 Zeitfunk           , Credit: Karen Van Norman
Honky Tonk, USA. That’s where bluegrass lives some of the time. After a recent Darrell Webb song, our show settles into a set of interesting Hony-T...

Bought by KRPS, WNTI.ORG-Internet Radio from Centenary University, WOUB, KSKQ, KRZA and more


  • Added: Jun 09, 2014
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 17
Caption: Philip Nusbaum w/ 2012 Zeitfunk           , Credit: Karen Van Norman
Our show opens with recent and new bluegrass. Then, the Gem of Bluegrass presents a tribute to the Country Gentlemen, a group that had a very succe...

Bought by WOUB, KEOS, KSKQ, RadioFreePalmer, KPVL and more


  • Added: May 27, 2014
  • Length: 59:30
  • Purchases: 16
Caption: Philip Nusbaum w/ 2012 Zeitfunk           , Credit: Karen Van Norman
Jesse James was a bad outlaw, one of the first to rob trains. The traditional song about him portrays him as a Robin Hood figure, but nothing of th...

Bought by KSJD, WOUB, KEOS, KSKQ, KPVL and more


  • Added: May 20, 2014
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 15
Caption: Philip Nusbaum w/ 2012 Zeitfunk           , Credit: Karen Van Norman
Towards the beginning, we play a couple of songs representing the second bluegrass revolution, the one occurring in the 1960s and 1970s, by playing...

Bought by KSJD, WNTI.ORG-Internet Radio from Centenary University, KEOS, WOUB, KPVL and more


  • Added: May 16, 2014
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 17
Caption: Philip Nusbaum w/ 2012 Zeitfunk           , Credit: Karen Van Norman
The show begins with recent bluegrass. Then, the Gem of Bluegrass discusses the second bluegrass revolution, taking place in the 1960s-1970s. One o...

Bought by KEOS, KSKQ, WOUB, KRZA, KPVL and more


  • Added: May 11, 2014
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 16
Caption: Philip Nusbaum w/ 2012 Zeitfunk           , Credit: Karen Van Norman
Bluegrass music’s history is one of evolutions and revolutions. It began with a stylistic revolution when Bill Monroe, after a period of trial-and-...

Bought by KEOS, KSKQ, WOUB, KRZA, WEZU and more


  • Added: May 05, 2014
  • Length: 58:59
  • Purchases: 17
Caption: Philip Nusbaum w/ 2012 Zeitfunk           , Credit: Karen Van Norman
We break out with recent bluegrass. Then on the Gem of Bluegrass, we cover two branches of the same song tree and a new version which owes to each ...

Bought by KSJD, WOUB, KEOS, KSKQ, KRZA and more


  • Added: Apr 28, 2014
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 18
Caption: Philip Nusbaum w/ 2012 Zeitfunk           , Credit: Karen Van Norman
Inspired by a recent broadcast that featured story songs, towards the beginning of the show we hit the mother lode of story songs: those that tell ...

Bought by KSJD, KEOS, WOUB, KSKQ, KPVL and more


  • Added: Apr 21, 2014
  • Length: 58:59
  • Purchases: 18
Caption: Phil w/2013 Zeitfunk, Credit: Karen Van Norman
At the beginning of the show today, we play a group of new releases, some of which test the boundaries of bluegrass music. The Gem of Bluegrass que...

Bought by KSJD, WOUB, KEOS, KSKQ, KPVL and more


  • Added: Apr 12, 2014
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 16
Caption: Philip Nusbaum w/ 2012 Zeitfunk           , Credit: Karen Van Norman
Our broadcast opens with a couple of songs set in prison, one new and one old. On our Gem of Bluegrass we present a study of one means of compositi...

Bought by WEZU, KSJD, KSKQ, WOUB, KFOK-LPFM and more


  • Added: Apr 07, 2014
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 18
Caption: Phil w/2013 Zeitfunk, Credit: Karen Van Norman
Dirt roads can symbolize stuff that’s real and in fact, there is a song called “Dirt Roads” by Wayne Taylor. We take off from there and play some o...

Bought by KSJD, WOUB, WNTI.ORG-Internet Radio from Centenary University, KRZA, KPVL and more


  • Added: Mar 28, 2014
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 12
Caption: Philip Nusbaum w/ 2012 Zeitfunk           , Credit: Karen Van Norman
Our program opens with a couple of envolope-pushing numbers that country star Dierks Bentley had a hand in. Then we open one of today’s thematic th...

Bought by KSKQ, WOUB, WNTI.ORG-Internet Radio from Centenary University, KPVL, RadioFreePalmer and more


  • Added: Mar 17, 2014
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 15
Piece image
The show begins with songs of easy virtue. Sometimes this type of promiscuity is not as easy as it seems to some. The segment reveals shifting atti...

Bought by KPVL, KKRN, Sun Radio - KDRP Radio, KSJD, WOUB and more


  • Added: Mar 11, 2014
  • Length: 58:59
  • Purchases: 12
Caption: Phil w/2013 Zeitfunk, Credit: Karen Van Norman
We’ve got a backlog of new releases so we spin quite a few of them today. Rockabilly and bluegrass music. These are two idioms that have used the b...

Bought by KSJD, KFOK-LPFM, WNTI.ORG-Internet Radio from Centenary University, WLPR , KPVL and more


  • Added: Mar 08, 2014
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 15
Caption: Phil w/2012 Zeitfunk, Credit: Karen Van Norman
Songwriter Paul Simon and bluegrass music: Paul writes frequently about the dark subjects bluegrass singers enjoy: breakups for example. We play a ...

Bought by WNTI.ORG-Internet Radio from Centenary University, WOUB, KSJD, KSKQ, RadioFreePalmer and more


  • Added: Mar 04, 2014
  • Length: 59:30
  • Purchases: 14
Caption: Phil w/ 2013 Zeitfunk, Credit: Karen Van Norman
second of two Bluegrass Review fund raising editions

Bought by KSVR Studios: Skagit Valley Radio and WDSE


  • Added: Feb 24, 2014
  • Length: 40:06
  • Purchases: 2

  • Added: Feb 24, 2014
  • Length: 38:55
  • Purchases: 3
Caption: Philip Nusbaum w/ 2012 Zeitfunk           , Credit: Karen Van Norman
Bluegrass fans are of course aware of songs about train wreck. But when contemporary people use the expression “train wreck” they’re not necessaril...

Bought by WOUB, KSKQ, KSJD, KPVL, KRZA and more


  • Added: Feb 20, 2014
  • Length: 58:59
  • Purchases: 14