American Idol alum C.J. Harris, who positioned sixth on the point out’s thirteenth season in 2014, has died. He turned into as soon as 31.
A spokesperson for the Walker County Coroner confirms to PEOPLE that Harris died on Sunday after he turned into as soon as rushed to the Walker Baptist Clinical Heart in Jasper, Alabama. CPR efforts were unsuccessful.
TMZ turned into as soon as first to file the info.
Jessica Meuse, who competed on season 13 of Idol alongside Harris, remembered the megastar in an Instagram tribute.
“Your skill and smile will seemingly be passed over, and the field is totally a darker and eerily quieter attach without you in it,” she wrote. “I will miss your random cell phone calls soliciting for existence advice and talking concerning the tune world… There are a form of things I realize I will have the ability to even now not ever perceive — you leaving us so quickly is a form of things.”
The musician first auditioned for American Idol on a Tuscaloosa bus tour, then sang before judges Keith Urban, Jennifer Lopez and Harry Connick Jr. in Salt Lake Metropolis.
C.J. Harris.
FOX Image Collection through Getty
His steal on the Allman Brothers hit “Soulshine,” which he dedicated to his father, earned him three votes for Hollywood, and he later had memorable performances of hits admire “Can not You Spy” by The Marshall Tucker Band and “If It Hadn’t Been for Adore” by The SteelDrivers.
After his time on the point out, Harris performed with Darius Rucker at the Tremendous Ole Opry, and launched the highest “In Adore” in 2019. He veritably shared videos of him singing and playing guitar on TikTok and Instagram, and in October, wrote on Fb that he turned into as soon as engaged on recent tune in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.
The musician also acknowledged on Jan. 1 that he had “recent tune coming quickly.”
Harris — who turned into as soon as a father of two — informed The Hollywood Reporter in 2014 that he first auditioned for Idol in 2010 but didn’t internet it past the predominant spherical, and also unsuccessfully tried out for The X-Ingredient and The Narrate.
“I turned into as soon as consistently on the on-line, hunting for a break, shopping for which producers I will have the ability to even send my stuff to. I hunted for American Idol and I saw they were doing the bus tour and they were going to be half-hour down the twin carriageway from me,” he recalled. “I acknowledged, ‘ what? I will give it one other likelihood. I’ve gotten so mighty higher, my teach has matured and my playing has gotten so mighty higher.”
Michael Becker/FOX Image Collection through Getty
The musician also acknowledged that his care for of tune started as a baby, when his mother would stutter to him over the cell phone whereas she turned into as soon as in prison.
“Tears would true shuffle with the lope out of my eyes,” he acknowledged. “After I turned into as soon as a shrimp older, my granddad gave me a guitar. He had one in the shed and it had three strings on it. He acknowledged I didn’t must eradicate a full recent position of strings. So I would tune it in a components that after I strummed it, it sounded admire it be in a key of no subject. I internet assorted sounds. I true care for tune so I indubitably attempt and internet a sound that I care for and true play it. I know that is abnormal, but that is what I produce.”
