Neil Diamond talks in a brooding Brooklyn baritone. It's hard to tell when he's done making his point, because his tone never wavers, his voice never drops at the end of a sentence, his pauses all sound pregnant.

YUI MOK/The Associated Press

However, throw him a curveball or a straight line and suddenly he lights up like the man of a thousand stage gestures who thrills crowds of 15,000 night after night, decade after decade.

Example: When he kicked off his 37-city North American tour Saturday in St. Paul, Minn., he became the oldest male artist to headline a major arena tour. Hearing that, the dour Mr. Diamond becomes Johnny Carson.

"Well, I didn't know that," the startled 67-year-old said with a chuckle over the phone last weekend from his Los Angeles recording studio. "I do know that I'm the oldest recording artist in the history of Billboard charts to have a No. 1 album."

He was not surprised when his Home Before Dark debuted at No. 1 in June, he says, because his new manager, Irving Azoff, who works with the Eagles, Christina Aguilera, Van Halen and Guns N' Roses, was determined to make that happen. (Think of Mr. Diamond's appearance on American Idol.)

"I was satisfied with this album from the get-go," Mr. Diamond says matter-of-factly. "Everything else was wonderful but it was beside the point, really."

Spend a half-hour on the phone with Mr. Diamond and he comes across like a solitary man whose glass is half-empty, a neurotic New Yorker who's forever in a blue mood, a guy who has sung so many blues songs that his life has become one.

So how happy is he right now?

"I'm always restless. When one thing is completed, I'm looking forward to the next thing. I need something to occupy my mind, my heart, my emotions and my life," he says. "So I'm forming the next big challenge, and that always makes me feel good."

So how does he feel on a 10-point happy scale?

"With 1 being depressed and 10 being delirious, I'd say I'm about 8 or 8 ½. I've gotten to 10 a few times, but it doesn't last too long. You have a baby born or you finish an album or you hit No. 1. It lasts about a week."

An 8? You'd never guess it from some of the songs on his splendid, stripped-down new album. The song "If I Don't See You Again" sounds more fateful than hopeless. "Act Like a Man" calls the "song maker" a "faker" and "worthless daydreamer." The title song, "Home Before Dark," could be about death.

"That may be true but I certainly wasn't aware of that while I was writing it," he says in his croaky, cadaverous voice. "I'm still interpreting some of these songs. With songwriting, a lot of it is stream-of- conscience and a lot of it is subconscious. Literally and intellectually understanding and explaining these things sometimes doesn't come for a while after they've been written and released and you've listened to them for a while. There were some dark moments, and there were some light moments."

One of the most successful touring acts of the last few years as well of the previous three decades, Mr. Diamond will not consider a residency in Las Vegas like other sixtysomething icons, such as Bette Midler, Cher, Elton John and Barry Manilow.

"I feel it's like one of my obligations as an artist to come to people's hometowns and play my music for them," he says.

Being onstage is one of his consistently happy times.

"It's always, always a joyful time onstage because there are no distractions. It's the most fun thing that I do," he says. "I wouldn't say a 10 (on the happiness scale), but it's always in the 9s. It's up there."

Mr. Diamond had a grand time onstage last month at Glastonbury, England's biggest and hippest music festival, which drew more than 170,000.

"It was everything it was cracked up to be," he says. "I've never seen that many people in my life. When you hear 'Sweet Caroline' sung by an audience that size and it's louder than the band and you are – I was knocked out by it."

Jon Bream,

Star Tribune (Minneapolis)