At 82, Kiwiana songwriter Linn Lorkin is as joyful and jazzy as ever

Linn Lorkin (born Lyn Williamson) grew up milking cows on her family farm near Tokoroa, was dux of Otahuhu College and studied French at the University of Auckland.

After that, she jumped at the chance to leave 1960s New Zealand - where "everything was safe, secure, boring and nothing happened" - for Swinging London.

At 35, performing jazz standards at piano bars in New York, Larkin started writing her first original songs. In 101 Songs: The Linn Larkin Songbook, she shares the stories behind classics like 'Helping Dad Milk the Cows' and 'Family At The Beach'.

New York was a "wonderful" place to be in the late 1970s, Lorkin says, more free and easy and much less populated than it is today.

Although it's now very expensive to rent a loft amongst the high-end shops of Soho - where she first stayed with her friend Kiwi jazz pianist Mike Nock - back then it was a noisy warehouse area full of artists.

Nock's "pretty primitive" loft was up five flights of stairs and didn't have hot water, so she washed herself in water boiled on the stove.

"I was bopping around being this young Kiwi, having a great time. A few little cafes had sprung up and some art galleries… at that stage, it was much more bohemian."

Although only a couple of piano bars remain in New York now - and Lorkin was stunned to see someone performing in a hoodie at one a few years ago - the late '70s and early '80s were the "golden age" for this type of sophisticated entertainment in the Big Apple, Larkin says.

Although she was perfectly happy covering jazz standards by Cole Porter and George Gershwin, one night, after being dumped by the man she was in love with, songwriting spontaneously began.

Earlier that night, lying on a friend's sofa, Larkin listened to a Joan Armatrading album, then, as she listened to the rhythms of the train on the subway ride home, felt "something happening".

Back at her friend Mike's empty loft about midnight, she sat at his Steinway grand piano and, without thinking about it, started composing songs for the first time ever.

"All these songs poured out of me. They just came out fully formed. It was amazing."

One of the first songs Lorkin wrote that night was 'Helping Dad Milk the Cows' - about flashing the passing logging trucks as a kid.

The later song 'Villa Poggi' - a favourite of her Otahuhu College friend and former New Zealand prime minister David Lange - is about Larkin's fellow prisoners at Naples' Poggioreale prison, where she spent six months awaiting trial for hash possession as a 28-year-old.

Although she did play iconic London jazz club Ronnie Scott’s, Larkin returned to New Zealand in 1985 without performing at her dream venue - New York's Plaza Hotel.

Back home in Auckland, though, she was feeling positive enough to write 'K Road' - "a song about being happy on Karangahape Road".

"I know it's not correct pronunciation, should be happy, but using poetic license, I'm so happy on karanga happy road. So I thought, well, no one else is going to do it. I think I'll do it."

Lorkin, who started singing in tune at three and playing the piano at five, says the songs she writes are sometimes funny and almost always joyful.

"I really like making people happy as an entertainer."

Listen to Linn Lorkin read from her 2022 memoir The Redhead Gets the Gig - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.