Radio Craves

Susan Feniger Plays a Sad Tune…or Five

Feniger still smiling
Feniger still smiling Photo: KCRW

In what is fast becoming our favorite part of scanning the air webwaves, another local chef has stepped to the proverbial “ones and twos” to spin their favorite songs for KCRW’s Guest DJ Project. Susan Feniger, the future Top Chef Master and mastermind behind Street and co-owner of Ciudad and Border Grill, is the latest toque hoping to stir our souls with her musical selections. So what did Feniger pick to play?

Strangely for Susan, who we’ve never glimpsed without that titanic trademark smile on her face, she picks songs that are admittedly “a little bit down and intense,” jumping from sad ballads like Joni Mitchell’s “Circle Game” and Annie Lennox’s “Why” to singers with haunting lives like Eva Cassidy and Bill Evans. Hopefully her spirits are lifted by getting in a plug for her partner of fifteen years, writer-director-singer-songwriter Liz Lachman, with her song “Rumble.” Much less surprising is hearing Feniger, still ahead of her time as a revolutionary gender-barrier-busting chef-owner, pick strong female voices in her attempts to rock us.

Listen to the Podcast of Susan Feniger’s Guest-DJ Project session here [KCRW]

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Susan Feniger Plays a Sad Tune…or Five