Legendary singer, composer, actor and comic Linn Lorkin, who’s just published her colourful musical memoir, The Redhead Gets the Gig, is still performing at the age of 80
Never Let Your Braces Dangle: Harry Champion (1910) I grew up on a farm near Tokoroa and Dad would sit down at the piano and sing this to the three of us kids music hall-style, which was very entertaining. It’s all played on the black keys and one particular verse was our favourite, because it was NAUGHTY.
You Can Have Him: Nina Simone (1959) When I went to varsity, I was already playing the piano as a classical musician. Then I bought this vinyl album with an African-American woman at the piano looking quite glam — Nina Simone at the Town Hall — and started trying to play like her by ear. I’d heard pop music on the radio, but I was fascinated by this sophisticated piece by Irving Berlin: “All I ever wanted to do was run my fingers through his curly locks, mend his underwear and darn his socks…” Very un-PC these days. It’s nice to think I was listening to a Broadway composer at 16 or 17, thinking it was great.
The Rite of Spring: Stravinsky (1913) I did Music 1 at varsity because there wasn’t a jazz course and Stravinsky was one of the composers we studied. I’d never heard anything like this, with its pounding rhythms and all that dissonance, and I’ve loved it ever since. Stravinsky hired a small room in a boarding house in Switzerland and wrote it for Ballets Russes in just two or three weeks. He said he felt that he was the vessel through which the music passed. Later, when I was writing songs, I felt like that sometimes. The first music concert I ever went to, in the early 60s, was to see him conduct The Firebird Suite at the Auckland Town Hall. It was absolutely fabulous. I was in tears.
![Linn Lorkin "The Piano Bar Lady" performs at Auckland's Watershed Theatre in 1992. Photo / Stephen Robinson](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/resizer/v2/BRYGTMZ3QPB56QBWQY5OBZDSYQ.jpg?auth=1b29ddf4d6c8c98602bb86a921ba8d42847933b3c946fc1cf2d81f096d62f49d&width=16&height=24&quality=70&smart=true)