A Ten-Song Collaboration That Blends Jangly Pop, Storytelling, And Emotional Shade
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Ray Johnson gives love, separation and personal loss their own shades on WaterColors, a ten-song album made with Dave Bieritz. The St. Charles, Illinois songwriter has a catalogue of nearly 100 songs, with influences rooted in 1960s jangly pop and the lyric-led writing of 1970s singer-songwriters. Released on October 22, 2026, this sixth studio release brings that musical history into a shared project built around the different colours a song can carry.
Johnson handles vocals, six-string and twelve-string acoustic guitar, percussion and keys, while Bieritz contributes bass, piano and keys. The combination gives the record a substantial instrumental vocabulary within a two-person collaboration. Its roots are acoustic, with room for the keyboard colours shared between both players.
Johnson describes each track as carrying “a different hue and shade of emotion”. Eternally Blue
and Heart Shaped World
carry that language into the tracklist, while Ghosts
closes the ten-song sequence. Love sits alongside self-worth, while separation and loss bring other pressures into the picture. The invitation is to consider the songs individually, allowing each feeling its own space within the collection. It is a useful way of approaching an album concerned with human emotion: a relationship can give rise to several stories, and each one deserves its particular shade.
That emphasis on imagery and storytelling connects with Johnson’s wider writing practice, which moves between acoustic ballads and folk-leaning pop-rock. Johnson also produced, recorded and mixed WaterColors. Mastering was handled by Daniel Blake at Daniel Blake Productions in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Most of its music and lyrics are Johnson’s, while “Music For The Soul” was co-written with Gregg Stone and “Say My Name” was written by Don Mercer.
The lead track, Be Still My Heart
, gives the album’s older influences a specific point of entry. Johnson’s release notes describe a meeting of Motown R&B and the jangly pop of 1960s British-invasion radio. It is an affectionate set of reference points for a songwriter interested in melody and narrative. Across ten tracks, the album’s premise leaves room for those familiar traditions to carry different emotional meanings.
Alongside performing and recording, Johnson is writing with possible television and film placements in mind. That ambition sits within a practice already concerned with strong imagery and stories that communicate a feeling. WaterColors brings that interest back to the album form, giving each song a place in a larger emotional picture. Johnson and Bieritz have built a collection around that shifting palette, giving each song room to stand on its own.
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