Zach Top has made a name for himself by making traditional-sounding country music. Ever since his Cold Beer & Country Music record came out in 2024, Top has been recognized as a trailblazer within the genre.
But for Top, none of it is a gimmick. All of his music comes from his own deep love of traditional country music from eras gone by. Top recently appeared on SiriusXM‘s Prime Country with Scotty McCreery, where Top shared his own Mount Rushmore of country artists.
“Mount Rushmore for me, No. 1 is probably Keith Whitley,” Top reveals. “That’s probably the biggest influence on my singing. I gotta throw George Strait in there, too, ’cause he was kind of the first reason – ‘Amarillo by Morning’ was my favorite song, ever since I can remember. That’s the first one I asked to learn how to play on guitar when I started playing guitar when I was five. And then, I would go a little deeper than that. George Jones and Merle Haggard, they’re the other ones I’d put on the Mount Rushmore.”
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Why Zach Top Loves Traditional Country Music
Top has been praised for his embrace of traditional country music by numerous artists, including Alan Jackson. But for Top, it’s all authentic, and comes from his own deep love of some of the country artists from years ago.
“All the 80s and 90s stuff, I very much was influenced by that,” Top explains. “It’s funny, that’s the first thing that made me fall in love with music. And then, as I got a little bit older and really paid attention to trying to sing the best I could, and playing too, I went so much older than that. I remember, I was ten years old, I had a box set of George Jones stuff, all the Stardays years. There was like 80 songs on there. I sat down there, I swear I learned every one of them at some point. I couldn’t remember them now.
“It’s funny; I feel like that’s probably part of the reason that I’m sonically reminiscent of all the 80s and 90s stuff,” he adds. “The same stuff that they were influenced by and that they grew up on, I kind of grew up on too.”
Zach Top’s Current “South of Sanity” Single
Top currently has a Top 15 single with “South of Sanity.” The song, written by Top along with Carson Chamberlain and Mark Nesler, is on Top’s sophomore Ain’t In It For My Health album.
“South of Sanity” says in part, “But I’m somewhere outside of Missoula / They just called my name from the stage / When we hung up she was talkin’ leavin’ / Now how am I supposed to sing and play / She’s left me somewhere south of sanity / Still just north of insane.”
The song is sadly at least partly based on a true story, when Top found out his wife, Kinzi, wanted a divorce. They split in early 2024. The singer found out his marriage was ending while he was waiting to go on stage.
“I was sitting over on the side of the stage or standing in the wings, one song left, and then I was going out, and I’m trying not to bawl my eyes out,” Top remembers (via Songfacts). “Then it’s like, ‘Put your phone back in your pocket, take a drag on a cigarette, and let’s go sing.'”
Photo Credit: CMA / Natasha Moustache