Sarah Johnson was running at full speed toward her dreams back in 2019. After writing countless songs, the visual artist was ready to bring her music to the world. She had started working with a team at Modern Electric Sound Recorders in Dallas and was all set to celebrate the release of her EP in March of 2020… but the pandemic had other plans.
With the world shut down, the creative had to think of other ways to connect with an audience through her music. Johnson turned to Instagram, where she invited other musicians to join her and perform songs live. Every Tuesday at 8 p.m., she played her songs in a feature she called Tuesday Tunes.
Songwriting is one of Johnson’s strengths. She easily paints pictures of heartache for love lost in her song “Fire”, the anticipation of new love in “Lookin’ For Someone”, and the bittersweet taste that comes from a chance encounter in “Red Bandana”.
Johnson is such a fan of sharing songs and female songwriters in DFW, that she created the biannual songwriter in the round style event Girls of DFW. Johnson told KXT writer Preston Jones that the motivation for the event was “…seeing the incredible female talent that North Texas has and wanting to create a listening room environment where we could really listen and appreciate the music.” The list of artists that have performed at Girls of DFW read like a who’s who of North Texas talent – Corina Grove, Bayleigh Cheek, Elaina Kay, Remy Reilly, Maya Piata, Frankie Leonie, Jones Monroe, and even KXT’s own La Bell have participated in the event.
Sarah Johnson tours around Montana almost every summer and has shows upcoming around Texas and Louisiana. Locally, you can catch her performing at Tequila Social on October 29th. Be sure to follow her Instagram for upcoming shows and releases.
UPDATE: This post was updated on October 9 to correct upcoming show dates. Sarah Johnson performed at the State Fair of Texas in 2022.
You can hear even more local music at noon Mon-Fri on Local Bites and on the KXT Local Show on Thursday nights at 7 p.m. If you’re an artist from North Texas, you can submit your music to KXT for consideration right here.
Nilufer is the midday and Local Show host on KXT. She’s also the Manager of Radio Operations for North Texas Public Broadcasting.
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