Raymond "Mundo" Earwood (October 13, 1952 – April 21, 2014) was an American

country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...

singer-songwriter. Earwood's eponymous debut album was released by Excelsior Records in 1981. His most successful single, "Things I'd Do for You", reached the Top 20 on the ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...

Hot Country Songs Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine in the United States. This 50-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly by collecting airplay data from Nielsen BDS along with digital sal ...

chart in 1978. For a time, he also recorded as Mundo Ray.

Biography

Earwood was born in

Del Rio, Texas Del Rio is a city and the county seat of Val Verde County in southwestern Texas, United States. The city is 152 miles west of San Antonio. As of 2020, Del Rio had a population of 34,673. History The Spanish established a small settlement south o ...

. After graduating high school in Corpus Christi, he enrolled in San Jacinto Junior College but soon moved to

Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...

where he hired a band, and began playing for $8 at any venue that would book him. Earwood released several records on a small Houston label. His manager took him to

Nashville Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and the ...

to cut his first major national release, "Behind Blue Eyes", which was initially released on Earwood's own label, Raywood, and eventually sold to the Royal American label, where it spent eight weeks at #1 on the Houston radio charts, six months total on the Houston charts, and a long tenure on the national charts. He went on to release "Let's Hear it for Loneliness", "Lonesome Is a Cowboy" and "I Can Give You Love". In 1978, "Things I'd Do For You" soared to #18 on the ''

'' country chart. This period also produced "Fooled Around and Fell in Love", "Angelene", and "My Heart is Not My Own". During his career, he appeared on the Billboard charts 23 times. Mundo Earwood was diagnosed with

pancreatic cancer Pancreatic cancer arises when cell (biology), cells in the pancreas, a glandular organ behind the stomach, begin to multiply out of control and form a Neoplasm, mass. These cancerous cells have the malignant, ability to invade other parts of t ...

and a fibrous histiocytoma tumor in 2013, which later led to his death on April 21, 2014, at the age of 61.Mundo Earwood obituary
legacy.com; accessed May 1, 2014.

Discography

Albums

Singles

;Notes *A ^ "Angela" also peaked at No. 40 on the ''

RPM Revolutions per minute (abbreviated rpm, RPM, rev/min, r/min, or with the notation min−1) is a unit of rotational speed or rotational frequency for rotating machines. Standards ISO 80000-3:2019 defines a unit of rotation as the dimensionl ...

'' Country Tracks chart in Canada.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Earwood, Mundo 1952 births 2014 deaths People from Del Rio, Texas American country singer-songwriters American male singer-songwriters Singer-songwriters from Texas Deaths from pancreatic cancer in Texas Country musicians from Texas