Zach Top Reveals His Country Music “Mount Rushmore” — And the Four Legends Explain a Lot About His Traditional Sound

Ask Zach Top to name the artists who shaped his approach to country music, and he doesn’t need much time to think.

During an August appearance on Scotty McCreery’s SiriusXM show, Prime Country with Scotty McCreery, Top was challenged to build his personal “Mount Rushmore” of country stars. His four choices — Keith Whitley, George Strait, George Jones and Merle Haggard — offered a revealing look at the musical foundation behind his traditional style.

The conversation was especially fitting given Top’s growing reputation as an artist carrying the sounds of classic country into a new generation.

Scotty McCreery asks Zach Top to name his biggest influences

McCreery opened the discussion by acknowledging Top’s connection to the country music of the 1980s and ’90s.

“Here on ‘Prime Country,’ we love all things ’80s and ’90s country music,” McCreery said. “I think, in 2026, you are keeping the ‘Prime Country’ sound alive, so we all appreciate that.”

Top thanked him before McCreery asked which singers had influenced him most — and who would earn a place on his personal country music Mount Rushmore.

Top immediately started with Keith Whitley.

“Yeah, Mount Rushmore, for me, No. 1 is probably Keith Whitley,” he said, explaining that Whitley was “probably the biggest influence on my singing.”

George Strait inspired the first song Top learned on guitar

George Strait claimed the second spot, and Top’s connection to the country legend stretches all the way back to childhood.

He recalled that “Amarillo By Morning” had been his favorite song for as long as he could remember. More significantly, it was the first song he asked to learn when he began playing guitar at just five years old.

For his final two selections, Top chose another pair of country giants: George Jones and Merle Haggard.

Together, the four names paint a clear picture of the musical tradition that helped shape Top’s own sound.

Over the past several years, he has frequently performed songs from earlier generations of country stars while establishing himself as a traditional-country artist in his own right. In 2026, his third studio album, Ain’t In It For My Health, won the inaugural Grammy for Best Traditional Country Album.

Top’s influences eventually took him further back in country history

Although Top initially fell in love with the country music of the ’80s and ’90s, his musical education didn’t stop there.

As he became more serious about developing his singing and playing, he began exploring much older recordings.

“All the ’80s and ’90s stuff, I very much was influenced by that,” Top explained, adding that it was the music that first made him fall in love with the genre.

But as he grew older, he said, “I went so much older than that.”

Top specifically recalled digging into George Jones’ early catalogue from his time at Starday Records in the mid-1950s.

That exploration helped him understand why his own music can sound so closely connected to the country records of the ’80s and ’90s.

“I feel like that’s probably part of the reason that I’m sonically reminiscent of all the ’80s and ’90s stuff,” he said. “The same stuff that they were influenced by and that they grew up on, I kind of grew up on, too.”

Scotty McCreery says Top’s traditional-country identity feels “genuine”

McCreery told Top that listeners can recognize the authenticity behind his approach to country music.

“I think everybody can look onstage and see it’s real,” McCreery said. “That’s just who you are.”

Top’s four selections were all male artists, leaving influential female country figures such as Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris outside his personal Mount Rushmore.

But his choices reveal a consistent musical lineage: Whitley’s influence on his vocals, Strait’s impact from childhood and the deeper roots represented by Jones and Haggard.

For an artist increasingly associated with keeping traditional country sounds alive, Top’s Mount Rushmore makes one thing particularly clear — the classic character of his music isn’t simply a stylistic choice. It comes directly from the records he grew up loving.