Sally Johnson Presents...Her Latest Dream

Sally Johnson is back and she has a dream. The popular Westborough concert promoter, who helped to showcase the musical talents of Westborough teens at the Olde Vienna Kaffeehaus (now ) in the 1990s, has returned to the area. She revived Sally Johnson Presents with a series of singer/songwriter shows in Millbury, and she hopes to create a new venue in Westborough that will cater to budding musicians.

“Keeping culture alive is really, really important to me,” Johnson told Westborough Patch from her home on Mt. Pleasant Street. She shared photos and newspaper clippings showing several decades of acoustic and folk concerts that she helped to promote in this area and around the country.

Tonight, April 24, she presents Darryl Purpose, a singer/songwriter who was recently reviewed as having “the voice of James Taylor, the brains of Bob Dylan and the soul of Willie Nelson.” The show runs from 7 to 9 pm. at Scales Restaurant, 45 River St. in Millbury. Tickets are $6. Johnson said she is transforming the restaurant into an acoustic café for one evening each month “until it is received well enough to be done more often.”

In addition to Singer Songwriter Night, Johnson also presents Under the Stairs Open Mike Night. The next installment will be on June 11 and feature Barbara Kessler.

Johnson has a passion for acoustic and folk music presented in an intimate venue. Her interest bloomed when she started to attend Open Mike Night at the Old Vienna Kaffeehaus in 1992. She excitedly told of concerts there by Tiny Tim, Livingston Taylor, David Wilcox and a host of jazz, blues, folk, traditional and acoustic pop performers. By the time the coffeehouse closed in 1996, Johnson was helping to book acts and offering a musical showcase for kids in the area.

“When the Old Vienna Kaffeehaus closed, I took the shows across the street to Coffee Time Café,” she said. “The atrium next to was the setting.” She told of how she and her father would haul chairs from the to the atrium twice a month and set up for concerts.

“I really enjoyed setting that up for youth. Kids from all different towns came and listened to each other’s music. I loved to see that.”

For the next few years, she helped to organize intimate concerts at Grafton Crossing, the , , the Framingham Civic League and Wachusett Village Inn in Westminster. “I was working seven days a week booking talent.”

And, surprisingly, she did it for little to no money. “It’s a passion; it’s a labor of love,” she said. “I wanted the proceeds to go to the artists and the sound guy.”

Her day job, in customer support for a retina imaging company, helped pay the bills. It also took her to San Francisco in 2006, and it didn’t take her long to book her first act. This time, and for the next two years, it was in her home. “I always wanted to do house concerts,” she said, showing a photo of a concert in the living room of her home.

From San Francisco, Johnson was moved to Denver. Like she had done so many times before, she started Sally Johnson Presents and quickly gained a Colorado following.

The traveling ended for her in 2010 when, for personal reasons, Johnson moved back to Westborough. She came home with a dream.

“It’s all in my head right now,” she said. “I want to create a performing arts center, a 200-seat theater, here in Westborough.”

Johnson has a vision for a center with an Internet café, a dance floor, couches, comfortable chairs, “Sally food” (which she describes as soups and chowders using locally grown vegetables) and a stage. She wants to make it a nonprofit venture and offer classes, Open Mike Nights, Singer Songwriter Nights and also rent the facility.

She said that she eyes a location in Bay State Commons, but she must first put together investors and launch a nonprofit organization.  

“I totally have the experience. Everyone knows I can do it. It’s about getting the money and getting the help I need,” she said.

“There’s got to be a place where kids can go, a place where they can meet one another and share music.”

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