Travis Tritt Had A Backstage Bluegrass Picking Session With Zach Top, & All Is Right In The World

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What happens when a 90s country music legend and a guy who sounds like he’s straight out of the 90s get together for a good, old-fashioned picking session? I’m not exactly sure what happens, but I do know what it would sound like thanks to this video that Travis Tritt shared of he and Zach Top shredding some guitar bluegrass style backstage.

You likely already know that Tritt had some of the biggest hits of the 1990s, like “T-R-O-U-B-L-E” and my personal favorite of his, “Here’s a Quarter.” If you fall within the younger demographic, and just clicked on this story because of Zach Top, you used to have to carry around this thing called change in case you wanted to call someone on a payphone (look it up).

And speaking of Zach Top, his neotraditional way of attacking country music has helped to bring back that 90s sound in the modern day. Top’s style was officially recognized with a “New Artist of the Year” award at the 2025 CMAs last week. He’s one of the hottest new names in country music right now.

That’s why seeing him sit down with a living country music legend is so damn cool.

Tritt and Top were sitting backstage in South Carolina before a show and decided to make the most of the extra time in the green room. They swapped guitars, somehow landed on the bluegrass song “Lonesome Reuben” that was made famous by Earl Scruggs, and got to picking.

It’s everything you could hope for and more:

“Picking a little ‘Lonesome Reuben’ with Zach Top backstage in South Carolina. We swapped guitars for this song with Zach playing mine and me playing his.”

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You love to see it.

There’s just something about seeing two different country music artists from two different generations coming together over the same appreciation of bluegrass music. That’s the power of music right there. A guy who peaked in the ’90s (no shade… Tritt was a ’90s legend who is still doing it) and a guy making a living off of sounding like he’s from that era in 2025 being able to appreciate and share the wonderful sound of bluegrass.

Truly a beautiful thing.

Someone in the comments said the bluegrass picking by both artists was so good, it “knocked doorknobs off,” which is reference to the door behind them appearing to not have an actual handle for opening and closing. An astute observation by a sharp-eyed country music fan, and there were plenty of other comments and suggestions in the reply section:

“Please do a bluegrass duet album, it would be huge.”

“Man, I could listen to this all day!”

“I can dig it. Some nice picking by both of you guys.”

“This is the most old school, country, coolest s*** and the world of country music needs more of this.”

“Two of my favorite country cats going beast mode.”

“The best in the business and a legend.”

Which is which?The post Travis Tritt Had A Backstage Bluegrass Picking Session With Zach Top, & All Is Right In The World first appeared on Whiskey Riff.