The pioneering parallel between Joan Armatrading and Kamala Harris: Anthony Clavane

And, finally, the Premier League scraps the nonsensical VAR system. Yes, it’s been a great week. How’s it gone for you?

I am kidding about the third thing, of course. Despite the whole world being outraged by the decision to deny Leeds United an equaliser against Crystal Palace because three of striker Patrick Bamford’s armpit hairs were deemed to be offside, there is no chance, I’m afraid, that the controversial technology will be axed any time soon.

My third good thing to happen this week was, in fact, the decision to give Joan Armatrading a Women of the Year lifetime achievement award.

It just so happens that I was listening to my favourite Armatrading tracks on Spotify when I heard the news. And I certainly decided to Show Some Emotion. For Joan, you see, I have a great deal of Love and Affection.

You know you are getting old when they start handing out lifetime achievement gongs to artists who are less than a decade older than you. Joan is nine years my senior, and I have been listening to her for the last five decades.

It was the late, great John Peel who, when I was a teenager in the 1970s, introduced me to one of Britain’s finest ever female singer-songwriters.

“Whispering” Bob Harris and Johnnie Walker were the two other DJs who, eventually, played her albums, but Peelie championed her smoky vocals and groundbreaking music – an eclectic fusion of folk, pop, soul, synth-pop, hard rock, jazz and the blues – from the get-go.

Back then, she was that rarity on the scene: a British female singer-songwriter. 19 albums later she is a national treasure.

She was a true pioneer. 
In a male-dominated genre, crammed with wannabe, substandard Dylans, she broke the mould, carving a unique path through the music scene and paving the way for other, equally brilliant, British women: Kate Bush, Kirsty MacColl, Beth Orton, Polly Harvey and Amy Winehouse to name but five.

And, in a week when Kamala Harris has vowed to use her impending elevation to the US vice-presidency – the first woman of colour to achieve the role – as a model for the future, it is important to acknowledge the significance of the three-times-Grammy-winner’s trailblazing exploits as the first black, British, female singer-songwriter to achieve international success.

“While I will be the first woman in the office,” declared Harris, “I will not be the last, because every little girl watching tonight sees that this is a country of possibilities.”

In the 1970s, little girls – and, yes, teenage boys like myself – were inspired by Joan’s music. She was, and remains, famously reclusive. Her songs are mostly concerned with matters of the heart.

But such classics as Tall in the Saddle and Barefoot and Pregnant challenged sexist stereotypes and expressed the rich spiritual life of strong, independent women.

I can remember a feature 
on her in the women’s liberation magazine Spare Rib – alongside articles on Barbie-dolls, the objectification of women and Mary Wollstonecraft.

This was an era of possibilities. How strange, then, that in the supposedly-post-feminist 21st century, a naked female figure has appeared which dishonours the memory of Wollstonecraft, the “mother of feminism”.

Maggi Hambling’s silvered-bronze sculpture of the 18th Century radical provoked an online backlash two days ago after being unveiled in London.

“The body is Barbie-doll,” argued Laura Freeman in the Daily Telegraph. “Perky, slender, sleek as a Gillette Venus model. Only the fierce, furrowed brow would tell you that this woman is anything other than an unthinking mannequin.”

The statue, which took ten years and £143,000 of funding to create, was defended by author Bee Rowlatt. “Mary Wollstonecraft was a rebel and a pioneer,” she noted, “and she deserves a landmark work of art.”

Indeed so. But, to quote the song title of another pioneering rebel – Armatrading – This Is Not That. As one of the seminal song’s great lines puts it: “I’m naked on a mountain but I still don’t feel free.”

Support The Yorkshire Post and become a subscriber today. Your subscription will help us to continue to bring quality news to the people of Yorkshire. In return, you’ll see fewer ads on site, get free access to our app and receive exclusive members-only offers. Click here to subscribe.