Zach Top Isn’t Really Alan Jackson’s Son … Is He?


In Zach Top’s first hit song “Sounds Like The Radio,” he sings, “Well, the day I was born the doc couldn’t believe, I came out cryin’ Chattahoochee.”

Some, if not many, are starting to convince themselves that this line isn’t fiction, nor is it a strange coincidence.

What started out as a joke has now blown up into a full-blown conspiracy theory that Zach Top is not only emulating the ’90s country sound of country stalwarts such as Alan Jackson, but that Alan Jackson actually sired Zach Top. Since Alan Jackson is from Georgia, and Zach Top was born in Sunnyside, Washington on the other side of the American continent, this seems implausible on its face.

But this didn’t stop Canadian country DJ Docc Andrews of 93.7 JR Country out of Vancouver, British Columbia from helping to spark the conspiracy theory last week while on the air.

“You guys, Zach Top was born September 6th, 1997, in Sunnyside, Washington, USA. If you go back nine months from his birth date to the winter of 1996. In November of 1996, Alan Jackson played at the Tacoma Dome in Tacoma, Washington! Have you seen Zach Top’s face? His mustache? His sound? Zach Top is Alan Jackson’s son. Prove me wrong.”

It’s undetermined how many people were actually listening live when Docc Andrews threw out this idea. But after posting a clip of his conspiracy theory on Tik-Tok, it exploded, with over two million views, 144,000 shares, and counting.

Then of course, social media and the viral Hawk-Tuah-style country music websites started spreading the idea like a bad rash all the way to the point that on Friday, January 10th, Zach Top’s Wikipedia page read, “Zach Top was born on September 26, 1997, and grew up on his father Alan Jackson’s ranch in Sunnyside, Washington. He got his musical start performing as part of a bluegrass band with his siblings called Top String.”

The Wiki page has since been changed back to its original verbiage.

So is there really a chance that Zach Top—the reigning Saving Country Music Artist of the Year—is truly the long lost son of Alan Jackson? After all, a check of setlist.fm does indeed verify that Alan Jackson’s final show in 1996 was on November 7th at the Tacoma Dome, which is less than three hours away from Zach Top’s hometown, and where someone would likely go to take in an Alan Jackson concert in the area.

But of course it’s not true. Maybe the sound and some of the physical features are similar, but this is because Zach Top is trying to remind folks of ’90s country. And unfortunately, whenever something like this goes viral on the internet these days, there will be a certain percentage of people who are not in on the joke and take it seriously. That’s how it’s grown into an actual thing. But in truth, it is not a thing at all.

We saw something similar happen with the idea that Kid Rock was truly the son of Hank Williams Jr. after Hank started referring to Kid Rock as his “rebel son” in 2005. Neither Kid Rock nor Hank Jr. took it seriously, but many in the public still did, graduating it to an urban myth. Hank Jr.’s actual son, Shelton Hank Williams III, had to address it in the song “Not Everybody Likes Us,” where he clarified in no uncertain terms,

Just so you know, so it’s set in stone
Kid Rock don’t come from where I come from
Yeah, it’s true, he’s a Yank, he ain’t no son of Hank
And if you even thought so
God-damn, you’re f–kin’ dumb


One caveat to this story is that despite Zach Top’s surging success, it’s probably imperative that he starts putting some distance between himself and the artists he’s influenced by. He started his career in bluegrass, and his first self-titled album from 2022 is a straight bluegrass album. For all we know, Zach’s next record might be outright Outlaw, or he might evoke the Bakersfield Sound, or go Countrypolitan. Or he might ride the ’90s thing for a while.

Zach Top is an American original for sure. But if he wants to take his career to the next level, he’s going to have to find his own original sound and forge his own legacy, just like Alan Jackson did.

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