‘American Idol’ Alum C.J. Harris Unnecessary at 31

American Idol alum C.J. Harris, who positioned sixth on the expose’s 13th season in 2014, has died. He changed into once 31.

A spokesperson for the Walker County Coroner confirms to PEOPLE that Harris died on Sunday after he changed into once rushed to the Walker Baptist Medical Middle in Jasper, Alabama. CPR efforts were unsuccessful.

TMZ changed into once first to memoir the tips.

Jessica Meuse, who competed on season 13 of Idol alongside Harris, remembered the dear person in an Instagram tribute.

“Your skills and smile will be overlooked, and the enviornment is totally a darker and eerily quieter arrangement without you in it,” she wrote. “I will recede out your random mobile telephone calls asking for existence advice and talking regarding the song world… There are an awfully good deal of issues I realize I obtained’t ever understand — you leaving us so rapidly is a form of issues.”

The musician first auditioned for American Idol on a Tuscaloosa bus tour, then sang earlier than judges Keith Urban, Jennifer Lopez and Harry Connick Jr. in Salt Lake Metropolis.

His tackle the Allman Brothers hit “Soulshine,” which he devoted to his father, earned him three votes for Hollywood, and he later had memorable performances of hits esteem “Can’t You Undercover agent” by The Marshall Tucker Band and “If It Hadn’t Been for Luxuriate in” by The SteelDrivers.

After his time on the expose, Harris performed with Darius Rucker on the Wide Ole Opry, and launched the one “In Luxuriate in” in 2019. He on an on a conventional foundation foundation shared movies of him singing and playing guitar on TikTok and Instagram, and in October, wrote on Facebook that he changed into once engaged on unique song in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.

The musician additionally acknowledged on Jan. 1 that he had “unique song coming rapidly.”

Harris — who changed into once a father of two — told The Hollywood Reporter in 2014 that he first auditioned for Idol in 2010 but did no longer develop it previous the principle spherical, and additionally unsuccessfully tried out for The X-Part and The Tell.

“I changed into once constantly on the online, attempting for a destroy, shopping for which producers I might per chance per chance send my stuff to. I hunted for American Idol and I noticed they were doing the bus tour and they were going to be half-hour down the aspect street from me,” he recalled. “I acknowledged, ‘You know what? I will give it but every other probability. I’ve gotten so severely better, my order has matured and my playing has gotten so severely better.”

The musician additionally acknowledged that his esteem of song started as moderately one, when his mother would verbalize to him over the mobile telephone while she changed into once in jail.

“Tears would just drift out of my eyes,” he acknowledged. “When I changed into once moderately older, my granddad gave me a guitar. He had one in the shed and it had three strings on it. He acknowledged I did no longer must purchase a full unique arrangement of strings. So I might per chance per chance perchance tune it in a approach that after I strummed it, it sounded esteem it’s in a key of regardless of. I procure diversified sounds. I just esteem song so I in point of fact strive and procure a sound that I esteem and just play it. I do know that’s unfamiliar, but that’s what I raise out.”