Tawhida Tanya Evanson is a poet, author, producer and Ashik. With a twenty-five-year practice in spoken word, she performs internationally and has released four studio albums and six videopoems. Her poetry collections include Bothism and Nouveau Griot, and her debut novel Book of Wings won the 2022 CAM/Blue Metropolis New Contribution Literary Prize. As Mother Tongue Media, Evanson produces interarts events including the upcoming Afrofuturist concert film CYANO SUN SUITE premiering in 2023. She moonlights as a whirling dervish.

The last name Fuhr is said to stem from the German root of fire (feuer), so Laurie Fuhr's stage name for her folk roots material - along with her propensity for writing torch songs -  came as easily to the auburn songsmith as lighting a match. 

Though she began as a poet and singer-songwriter from age 17, Fuhr began playing bass when she and her Brief Husband wanted to start a band and both played guitar. He was frustrated with his bass attempts and Fuhr noticed she was hearing bass runs in her head; soon she was addicted. She has played electric or upright slap bass and sung backup in several gigging Calgary bands of differing genres including indie, rockabilly, bluesy rock n roll, roots rock n roll, folk, and Celtic. The bands were Lonely Hunters, Pine Tarts, Night Committee, Mercury Audio, James Dangerous & the CIA, Ruth Purves Smith & The 581, Firewood, and Shona Rae and the VooDoo Hand (SRVH), the latter being her longest term and still-current bass engagement. SRVH released their first album on November 1 2014 and quickly became number 1 on the CJSW radio Top 50 chart. 

In summer 2014 she began recording a solo record (still in progress) of original indie rock and folk roots material with Lorrie Matheson, an incredible singer songwriter who has inspired her for years since she inadvertently bought his record from him at the Hot Wax record store. Eventually she played with Matheson in Night Committee (fronted by the fiery lead vocals of Andrew Wedderburn) before an outside  commitment forced her to leave the band. Fuhr played guitar and bass on her solo album. Joel Nye, her former Night Committee bandmate (and member of seminal Calgary indie rock band Hot Little Rocket) added drums to the tracks, 'Mando' Todd Maduke (Bigfoot Rocketship, The Ruminants) contributed mandolin, and Aleksandra Danicic (Ethan Collister and Firewood to name just two) brought in the fiddle, and James Dangerous played impressive lead guitar lines on several tracks. She hopes to complete and release the album in Spring 2015. 

In fall 2014 she started a band to support her forthcoming album with her good friends Chris Penner (Firewood), James Dangerous (James Dangerous & The CIA), Ryan Cole Eliason (Barely Zebra), and Keith McTaggart (Russian Artist 
Factory). Until album time she'll keep playing solo shows and duo shows, sometimes with Chris Penner on rhythm guitar or with James Dangerous on lead guitar depending on the type of gig.  

Other musical endeavours have included co-hosting the Mikey's Juke Joint Wednesday night jam, being a 3-time finalist in the Calgary Folk Fest / Ship and Anchor Song Contest, writing about music for Beatroute Magazine, and participating as an event organizer and promoter on the scene -- from Multiarts Variety Shows for charity organized when she first moved to town in 1995, to running a series of epic house concert parties in a Mount Pleasant bungalow. 

Recently she was selected to be subject matter for a short film about Calgary music (alongside well-known local musicians like Danny Vacon and Jenny Allen), directed by up and coming director Julia Gunst, part of a feature-length film composed of shorts called Whatcha Got? Calgary that enjoyed a sold-out screening in October 2014.

Prior to playing in bands, Fuhr was a very active member of the literary community, first in Ottawa, then in Winnipeg, Cold Lake, and Calgary, publishing poetry and reviews and volunteering at many events. She has served on the board of the Single Onion Poetry Society and for three years served as volunteer Managing Editor for filling Station, an independent, non-profit, nationally-distributed literary magazine. She is still involved with the writing community as a poetry instructor at the Alexandra Writers Centre Society in Calgary's historic neighbourhood of Inglewood.



I used to DJ in Vancouver, BC, and I used to call you on your cell phone.

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