Zach Top Says His Mom Suggests Songs For Him To Cover During His Concerts: “She’s Got A Pretty Good Ear For Songs”

Mother knows best.

Zach Top has spent most of his life on stage, chasing the dream that has brought him to where he is today. It’s always cool to see a young kid know precisely what they want to be when they grow up, and Zach Top is a prime example of that.

At the young age of 5, Zach Top began taking guitar lessons. He kept asking his guitar teacher to show him the chords of “Amarillo By Morning,” which shocked his instructor. However, Top got his wish, telling Dale Brisby on a Rodeo Time podcast episode that when he played his first show at the age of 7, “Amarillo By Morning” was on the setlist.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Dale Brisby (@dalebrisby)

Once Top took to the stage, he was hooked and formed a band with his siblings. The group had a long run of performing as a band, and in the end, Top knew that this was his calling.

“Yeah, we ran around 10 years. Luckily, I didn’t ruin any relationships with my siblings ’cause I remember having… we had some brutal band practices.

I was definitely the one that wanted it really bad, and I’d sit down there and play guitar three hours a day and then try and get them to, you know, do a little band practice for whatever show we had coming up or something. I was definitely an unpleasant little tyrant a lot of times, I’ll say.”

Top might see his determination to practice as being an “unpleasant little tyrant,” but I see that as motivation to perfect your craft. And it’s clearly paid off. Top is one helluva picker. I mean, check out this video of him at 12 ripping his acoustic while performing “Mule Skinner Blues.”

During those days of running around as a family band, Zach Top shared during a show earlier this summer in Indiana that his mother helped him and his siblings with their set lists.

“Back then, you’re a little kid and you don’t know nothing. And so my mom, she would kind of help me and my three siblings kind of set up the shows. She would kind of script what we were going to say and help pick the songs and everything. 

She turned down a lot of the things that I wanted to do because I wanted to sing cheatin’ and drinkin’ songs and stuff like that when I was eight years old, and she thought that was not age-appropriate material. And so she would shuffle the setlist around and give us a setlist that she thought would be good.”

A little Zach Top singing about cheating and drinking would be quite the sight to see. I have a feeling that Zach Top would be moaning “She’s Actin’ Single (And I’m Drinking Doubles),” in a pre-pubescent voice, still crushing it… But I can see his mother’s point that even though that would make for great archival footage, it’s not necessarily age-appropriate.

Top continues with his story, sharing how his mother’s setlist curation has not subsided as he’s grown older, and she still reaches out with suggestions of songs to include during his shows.

“I say all of this to say, she’s got a pretty good ear for songs. Every now and then, she’ll text me and be like, ‘You know, have you ever thought about doing this song in your show?’

And usually I think, ‘Ah, nah, we’re past those days now, Mom. I can pick my own cheatin’ and drinkin’ songs now, and I’ll be fine.’ But, she really does have a good ear for a song, and it’s kind of funny that for the last three years or something, she’s been telling me to do this song. So now we are going to do this song.” 

Upon concluding his story, he and his band kick off into the introduction of Sammy Kershaw’s “Cadillac Style.”

I’m glad that Zach Top’s mom kept bugging him to add this tune to his setlist because it’s an incredible cover. After the first verse, Top brings out Cole Goodwin to the stage, and the two men lay down pure country gold with this performance.

Mother always knows best. Check it out.

@denaboersma Zach Top talking about his moms influence on his set list; covering Cadillac Style by Sammy Kershaw with guest @Cole Goodwin Read More