Chris Cauley, of NBC hit The Voice, entertains lunch crowd at Down Under Food Court
The scattered lunchtime crowd Wednesday in the Down Under Food Court quickly moved toward the stage to listen in and get a better view as Chris Cauley’s acoustic guitar and soulful singing filled the air.
It was not the artist’s first visit to CMU; he has performed here three times in the past and was up to date on happenings around the school, joking with the crowd members about the rivalry with Western Michigan University and congratulating them on the newly hired basketball coach.
Cauley, a Georgia native, has a number of achievements to his name. He has been featured recently on NBC’s The Voice, performed with a number of famous artists, and even toured around the world with the “Man in the Mirror” Michael Jackson tribute show.
Freshmen, and self-proclaimed “Huge fans of 'The Voice,'” Courtney Buck, 19, and Sara Nicholas, 18, both of Grand Rapids, were eager to see Cauley’s performance and stayed after the show to meet and chat with the performer.
Anna Pawlowski, a Mason sophomore, also knew of Cauley from the show.
“He was one of my favorites from the very beginning,” she said. “It’s really cool that he came to CMU.”
Cauley played a wide variety of songs, not only playing material he wrote himself, but covering artists such as Bruno Mars, INXS and Michael Jackson. He also played the Temptations classic “Just My Imagination.”
“My momma raised me right,” Cauley said of the Motown hit. “This is one of the very first songs I learned when I was little.”
Among his own material, audience members were even treated to a new song Cauley was still working on. He went on to play “Everything Easy,” a song he wrote for his wife. The show had an intimate feeling, as songs were interspersed with joking banter, helping the hour-long set fly by.
“This is a relaxed vibe and I’m honestly more at home that way cause I get to be myself,” Cauley said. “I get to have a lot more fun and interact and chat with people.”
