Zach Top serves up star-making tunes with 'Cold Beer and Country Music'

If country music were college sports, Zach Top would be everyone's freshman class all-American and a surefire choice to be a professional-franchise cornerstone for a generation.

The 26-year-old performer's most vaunted skillset is so dialed in to the genre's fundamental tenets that his current single, "Sounds Like the Radio," feels like it existed alongside singles by Alan Jackson, Marty Robbins and George Strait multiple generations before the current one.

Moreover, his debut major-label album, which arrives Friday, is simply titled "Cold Beer and Country Music."

"Sometimes you have to give people what they want, right down the middle," Top tells The Tennessean.

'Sounds Like the Radio'

Typically, a newcomer arriving with a shift and forcing the genre's establishment to make room for their work is frowned upon. However, Top's handicraft sounds so authentic and necessary that artists like Luke Combs, Parker McCollum, Brothers Osborne, Jake Owen and Lainey Wilson have already praised its mix of timeless country twang and authentic songwriting.

"Attempting to gain mastery of your own thing allows you to make music that keeps country's fans from feeling like the genre is getting stale," Top says. "Fresh varieties of country music don't contribute to the stereotype that the genre is some sort of programmed machine."

Describing what seems like the immediate connective power of "Sounds Like the Radio," Top says: "Introducing people to me and my music with an up-tempo toe-tapper on an album filled with so many sounds hits the nail on the head in an approachable way that sticks out like a sore thumb (in country's mainstream format).

"Artists, especially country ones that are remembered for generations tend to stand out in a massive way when they (debut in) the genre's mainstream."

Proof of the power of award-winning country stars loving Top's early mainstream work arrived in March when "Sounds Like the Radio" was the most added song on country radio for two consecutive weeks.

'Cold Beer and Country Music'

Across the board, Top's release features bluegrass-inspired acoustic guitars, Red Dirt-ready Fender Telecasters, honky-tonk piano solos, and, of course, fiddles and pedal steel.

There are also love songs about "the kinds of women he likes," written by legends like Paul Overstreet, Tim Nichols and Mark Nesler. Also, in a manner similar to Garth Brooks, he has Bob Doyle co-signing his work as his music publisher.

Top's stylings of the past also bear the studio wisdom of Keith Whitley's band leader Carson Chamberlain (who also tour-managed for Alan Jackson and Clint Black).

With a debut already so warmly beloved on Music Row and beyond, it's clear that each day he'll live for the rest of his life could be viewed through the lens of being a forever love letter to neo-traditional country music.

And yes, of course, as if arriving directly from central casting for a Hollywood film, he's also a tall man in a big hat, press-starched straight-leg jeans, and a shirt buttoned with pearl-adorned snaps, singing twanging universal country and Western truths.

"The music I'm currently making is the only music I've ever loved and am proud to get to make," Top continues.

His candor and unwavering voice show him to be exactly what and who is being advertised.

"If you're worn out on two decades of trends and want to fall back in love with country music, my music is here for you," he continues.

Bluegrass roots

Although he's keen to mention that Whitley's love of Lefty Frizzell sent him down a classic country rabbit hole of learning, it's instead in diving into his 15 years of bluegrass work with acts like North Country and Modern Tradition that are important to consider.

Key to Whitley's roots is also that he and Ricky Skaggs spent time in Ralph Stanley's Clinch Mountain Boys before achieving 16 contemporary country No. 1 hits between them.

Top's initial interest in playing came from a childhood yearning to mimic "how cool George Strait looked wearing a hat and holding a guitar."

However, his initial guitar teacher, Marie Parks (a bluegrass traditionalist who still teaches guitar, mandolin and old-time fiddle/violin by note, tab, or ear), inspired Top to explore blending Tony Rice's bluegrass-inspired progressive rock sounds with his love of country's classic songs.

Listen to "Cold Beer and Country Music." That style's "subtle distinctions" are apparent in songs like "Things to Do."

"Take the drums of that one and replace them with a banjo and it's a bluegrass song," he says.

Dig deeper, and on "Cowboys Like Me Do," Top adds the work of 1960s-era rockabilly-to-country session guitarist Grady Martin (Marty Robbins' "El Paso," Loretta Lynn's "Coal Miner's Daughter," and Sammi Smith's "Help Me Make It Through the Night") to a mix that already includes Rice, Strait and Whitley.

He sticks it in the dead middle of an unmistakable groove.

'A young kid with old ears'

As a songwriter, Top's skills in spinning his yarns around impulses and tones familiar to acts like Strait and Whitley could be the calling card that makes him a consistent top-20 charter, at minimum, on country radio.

"I'm a young kid with old ears," jokes Top.

"'90s-era country style is relatable to modern-era listeners because, no matter how we (gain access) to the songs, we're still interested in or want to be inspired by authentically soulful and relatable, lifestyle-driven music. Whether you work in an office or grew up as a cowboy like I did, we all universally experience love, heartbreak — ups and downs in general, in our lives."

That youthful excitement causes Top to mix many metaphors when describing why he's confident that "Cold Beer and Country Music" represents his best work.

"I'm coming in from out of left field by slapping the best cards in my hand on the table and making an all-in bet on (my unadulterated) self," he says. "I believe that my music will hold up to the attention it's currently garnering and will continue to attract a fanbase."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Zach Top releases major-label debut with 'Cold Beer and Country Music'