Story highlights
Norwood hit the charts with his debut in 1995
Problems with alcohol prompted him to quit the industry
Officials are investigating the death of country singer Daron Norwood, whose body was found in his Hereford, Texas, apartment on Wednesday, police said. He was 49.
According to a police department statement, officers and medical personnel responded to a call to Norwood’s apartment, where he was found dead in a bedroom.
Police said there were no signs of foul play.
Norwood’s debut single, “If It Wasn’t for Her, I Wouldn’t Have You,” came in 1993, with the follow-up, “Cowboys Don’t Cry,” the next year. Both reached country music’s Top 30 chart.
A 2002 Country Weekly story described the singer as a “Texas preacher’s boy who came to Nashville in 1988 and slept in his truck for three years before scoring his mid-’90s hit.”
In the article, Norwood talked about the drinking problem that led him to quit the industry in 1995 and about founding Keep It Straight, an anti-drug, alcohol and violence program for young people, in 1997.
“I didn’t quit on life,” Norwood told Country Weekly. “But I quit the bus, I quit the band, I quit the record deal, quit the shows, the alcohol, the drugs. I quit it all with a phone call to my then-manager saying, ‘I’m done. And I do mean done - with it all.’ “
