A star is born.
Simply put, there’s no one doing it quite as well as Zach Top these days. Though there are plenty of other stellar artists keeping the traditional scene alive, such as Jake Worthington, Charley Crockett and more, the Washington native has launched himself into the stratosphere as of late.
Of course, this was highlighted on a national scale the past year when he not only took home Best New Artist at the CMA Awards in November, which he accepted with a Coors Banquet in hand, but also when he scored his first-career Grammy back in February. In turn, Top became the first-ever winner of the brand-new Best Traditional Country Album category, winning it with his sophomore album, Ain’t In It For My Health.
In addition to being labeled as the savior of traditional country music, Top has proven himself as the quintessential human jukebox over the past few years when it comes to delivering phenomenal covers of different songs across multiple eras. From Chris Stapleton’s “Nobody to Blame” and Billy Currington’s “Good Directions” to Shenandoah’s “Two Dozen Roses” and Conway Twitty’s “Slow Hand,” the Washington Native has yet to meet a classic song that he cannot perform flawlessly. Of course, that’s not even mentioning his rock-solid renditions of Travis Tritt’s “Where the Corn Don’t Grow” and George Jones’ “Bartender’s Blues” with the equally red-hot Red Clay Strays over the past year or so.
Last night in Duluth, Georgia, however, it wasn’t just Top who was delivering another stellar cover.
Taking his Cold Beer & Country Music Tour to the Gas South Arena in Duluth, the Washington native would perform a plethora of hits to start the set, including the likes of “Use Me,” “Sounds Like the Radio,” “Bad Luck” and “South of Sanity.” Towards the back half of the set, Top would spot a fan holding a sign in the pit.
After reading his sign, Top would invite the fan, whose name is Brayden Frasure, up to the stage and ask him what he wanted to sing. Not skipping a beat, Braden would ask to sing none other than “Tennessee Whiskey.”
Sorting out the order of the duet, which saw the “I Never Lie” singer take the first verse while Braden took the second, Top would jokingly give an apology to both George Jones and David Allan Coe, who performed the song before Chris Stapleton made it the double Diamond smash hit that it is currently in 2015. Additionally, he’d apologize to Stapleton as well, joking that
“Before we start this, we want to say sorry to George Jones, David Allan Coe for not doing your version. And then we want to say sorry to Chris Stapleton in case we screw up your version. I love you, Chris. We’re gonna try our best,”
It’s pretty safe to say that an apology was not needed in any way, shape or form here. Brayden, who is a young singer/songwriter, guitarist and actor himself with over 100,000 followers already on Instagram, gave nothing short of a jaw-dropping performance.
There’s no doubt that you never truly know what to expect when an artist brings a fan up to the stage for a duet. For every great one, like the time Riley Green brought a woman up in Glasgow for “you look like you love me” last year, there are seemingly dozens of truly awful ones that make you question why they’d go up in the first place.
With Brayden, however, I wouldn’t be surprised if he actually gets record labels contacting him in the coming days after this “Tennessee Whiskey” performance. For a kid no older than 15, it’s truly that impressive.
Watch here:
