Neil Diamond has left his mark on the pop charts, but his place in the history books is hazy at best.
At age 67, he became the oldest musician to score a No. 1 album with this year's Home Before Dark, a cherry on top of a career in which he's sold more than a 100 million records. Yet for all his hits, he still doesn't get much respect.
Many critics dismiss him as middle-of-the-road. He's won only one Grammy, in a minor category. And he's never made it into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
But if any of that bothers him, he hides it well.
"I learned the lesson a long time ago that I'm not going to be loved by everyone," he says by phone before a recent show in Phoenix. "That's not realistic."
Lately, he's been getting more love, thanks to partnering with rock and rap Svengali Rick Rubin, who produced Home Before Dark and 2005's stark, folk-oriented 12 Songs.
"This album and the last one was really an upper for me because I finally got the critical acceptance that's been running hot and cold through my career," the singer says. "I've had it and lost it. Now it seems like I've got it back, although the tide's gonna turn."
His current tour has seen ups and downs, as well. His voice was so hoarse during an August show in Columbus, Ohio, he decided to refund all 11,000 tickets.
"I haven't let you down before, and I won't let you down now," he told fans in a prepared statement. "You are the sun. I am the moon. You are the words. I am the tune. Forgive me."
Today, he calls the episode "a very humbling experience."
"I was in terrible voice that night, and with each song I thought my voice would come back, and it didn't," he says. "I just wanted to get down on my knees, apologize to people, give them their money back and rest up and get well again. That's what I did, and I'm singing just as well as ever at this point."
While his baritone remains the same, his costumes have changed. He's mothballed the sequin-and-satin outfits.
"The clothes made me an easy target," he says. "I wanted to wear something that was fun and light. But instead of writing about the music, critics wasted a lot of words on what particular shirt I was wearing."
Aside from a few new tunes, he builds every show around such radio staples as "Sweet Caroline," "I Am ... I Said" and "You Don't Bring Me Flowers." But the golden oldie that means the most to him is "Solitary Man," his first hit in 1966.
"I had spent seven or eight years trying to write music, and I was a dismal failure at it because I never understood the basic core, which was you have to write from your own experience," he says.
"But 'Solitary Man' was about me. It was the epiphany, where I understood that music was real. It didn't have to be made up."
He relearned that lesson on 12 Songs and Home Before Dark in tunes such as "Hell Yeah," where he looks at his mortality. He says these are songs he couldn't have written as a younger man. "The more you grow as a person, the more the songs grow," he says. "They become deeper and hopefully, more meaningful. They say, 'Here's somebody who's matured.' "Plan your life
Neil Diamond performs at 8 p.m. Thursday at American Airlines Center, 2500 Victory Ave. $55-$120. Ticketmaster.
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