Zach Top Ain’t In It For My Health
At this point, it’s a bit risky to sing about pickups, dirt roads and pretty girls and be taken seriously. What were once symbols of rural life have become country music cliches, sung by men who love the image but won’t do the work. Fast-rising star Zach Top, though, has done the work – he was raised on a farm in Sunnyside, Washington. More importantly (for our purposes, anyway), the seven-year-old Top formed a bluegrass band with his siblings. Both his rural-honed songwriting ability and his country pickin’ chops show up big-time twenty years later on his new album, Ain’t In It For My Health. Instead of worn-out AutoTune and lazy trap beats, Top brings a skillful band to his songs, giving us an idea of what popular country music should sound like.
Ain’t In It For My Health begins with a song titled, simply enough, “Guitar,” and it draws a picture of young Zach gazing on the instrument that would come to define his life – “‘Cause no Sunday church piano had ever done that to me/Since that day I’ve been workin’ on just what you see.” To show us he made the right choice, he rips off a wicked acoustic solo (countered nicely by Brent Mason’s electric solo). Up next is the album’s first single, “Good Times and Tan Lines.” Released in June, the song’s celebration of all things summer – “Headed to a spot everybody knows/Cannonball swingin’ from an old frayed rope” – will sound just right at least through Labor Day Weekend.
If you want to extend your summer beyond early September, Ain’t In It For My Health carries a couple of tunes with year-round beachy vibes. “I Know A Place” is a gentle ballad about a hidden spot “Where time slows down to a low tide pace.” Top croons “Don’t even worry about packin’ clothes” as a not-so-subtle suggestion that this is baby-makin’ music. If you’re in a tiki bar kind of mood but no longer have a partner, try “Splitsville,” a steely, Jimmy Buffett-style ode to the kind of bar where nobody (worth a damn) knows your name – “The bar’s all stacked, ain’t nothin’ it lacks/For makin’ a memory get lost.” Top has a way with country weepers – “When You See Me” promises a former flame he’ll stop loving her…someday, while “She Makes” is a prayer of gratitude for – finally – finding the right one: “I’ve always known you’ve done some mighty fine work/But Lord you outdone yourself when you made her.” But Top is a honky tonker at heart, and that comes through best in “Country Boy Blues,” a mid-tempo rambler that finds the singer pissed about the current state of the music (and Music City) he holds dear – “Every spot in town got a drink and a band/So why can’t I hear a damn country tune?” You may not (probably won’t) find them on Lower Broadway, but Zach Top has 15 of those brand-new tunes ready for your bro country-bruised ears.
Song I Can’t Wait to Hear Live: “Tightrope” – Electric guitar and barroom piano spice up the most dancehall-ready tune on the record, even as the song’s lead character is swearing off juke joints and roadhouses – “Chewin’ gum instead of smokin’ smokes/Sippin’ green tea instead of Jack and Coke…She gotcha walkin’ a tightrope.”
Ain’t In It For My Health was produced by Carson Chamberlain, recorded and mixed by Matt Rovey and mastered by Ken Love. All songs written by Zach Top and Carson Chamberlain, with co-writes going to Tim Nichols, Wyatt McCubbin, Paul Overstreet and Mark Nesler. Musicians on the album include Top (vocals, acoustic guitar), Andy Leftwich (acoustic guitar, fiddle, mandolin), Jimmy Carter (bass), Tommy Harden (drums, percussion), Brent Mason (electric guitar), Scotty Sanders (steel guitar), Gary Prim (piano, keys, Wurlitzer) and Glenn Worf (bass).
Go here to order Ain’t In It For My Health (out August 29): https://shop.zachtop.com/
Check out tour dates here: https://zachtop.com/tour
