From: gcmccoury@yahoo.com   
      
   By Deborah Evans Price   
   Fri Jun 16, 2006   
      
   Reuters/Billboard   
      
   After performing bluegrass music for more than 40 years, collecting numerous   
   accolades including the International Bluegrass Music Assn.'s entertainer of   
   the year award nine times, and winning a Grammy Award earlier this year,   
   you'd think Del McCoury would have checked off everything on his   
   professional to-do list. But there's at least one thing left: a gospel   
   album.   
      
   So the June 13 release of "The Promised Land" was a dream fulfilled for the   
   67-year-old entertainer.   
      
   "I'm Baptist, and the first time I ever sung and played music was in church   
   when I was just a kid," says McCoury, who went on to join Bill Monroe's band   
   in 1963. He later went solo, recording such acclaimed albums as 1972's "High   
   on a Mountain." But it was in the '90s that the Del McCoury Band hit its   
   stride on such landmark albums as 1992's "Blue Side of Town," 1993's "Deeper   
   Shade of Blue" and 1996's "Cold Hard Facts."   
      
   After stints on other labels -- most recently Ricky Skaggs' Skaggs Family   
   Records -- the bluegrass legend now has his own label, McCoury Music, which   
   is distributed by Sugar Hill Records and Welk Distribution.   
      
   McCoury has high hopes for the new project. "There's so many people who come   
   up to our merchandise table and ask for a gospel record," says McCoury,   
   whose band features sons Rob (banjo) and Ronnie (mandolin) as well as Jason   
   Carter (fiddle) and Alan Bartram (bass). "We always do a gospel song on the   
   record and an instrumental, but we've never had a whole gospel record. I'm   
   sure this will sell good on the road."   
      
   Although many gospel collections tend to cover the same oft-recorded hymns,   
   "The Promised Land" serves up some of the late Albert E. Brumley's   
   lesser-known gems such as "Led by the Master's Hand" and "It's Really   
   Surprising (What the Lord Can Do)." The 14-song disc also includes new tunes   
   by such Nashville writers as Billy and Terry Smith, Shawn Camp, Ronnie   
   Bowman and Jerry Salley.   
      
   McCoury and Salley co-wrote "Ain't Nothing Going to Come Up Today That Me   
   and the Lord Can't Handle," taking the title from a sign they saw backstage   
   at the Grand Ole Opry on Roy Acuff's door. "Jerry said, 'Hey, I want to   
   write a song around that.' So I helped him, but didn't help him too much,"   
   McCoury recalls with a laugh. "He'd come up here to the house and I'd been   
   in the studio all day. We couldn't get nothing done. So in the next day or   
   two he wrote a verse and called me and sung it to me and I said, 'Man, now   
   I've got to do a verse.' So I wrote the last verse and sung it to him over   
   the phone and that's the way it came about."   
      
   The remainder of 2006 will be busy for McCoury. In addition to performing   
   this summer at bluegrass festivals, the Del McCoury Band is slated to play   
   New York's Carnegie Hall. The group goes to Ireland in the fall. Also on the   
   agenda is filming a live DVD.   
      
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