Neil Diamond strikes a note in performance.

Journal Files

HARTFORD, Conn. Four decades into a career as the sequined king of soft rock, celebrated in his 1970s peak as much for his rakish growl and helmet of wavy hair as for hits like “Sweet Caroline” and “Song Sung Blue,” Neil Diamond is enjoying something of a career renaissance.

Always a strong concert draw, he has been making more money on the road than ever before, grossing $168 million over his last three tours, according to Billboard. And in May his 46th album on the Billboard charts, Home Before Dark (Columbia) — a set of stripped-down and reflective songs produced by Rick Rubin, who recorded Johnny Cash’s last releases — became his first to reach No. 1.

On Saturday, Diamond, 67, appears at Fenway Park in Boston, part of a mostly sold-out world tour that will take him well into 2009.

“I never expected that I would be doing this for as long as I’ve been doing it,” he said after his sold-out show at the XL Center here recently, having changed out of his black silk stage costume and into jeans and a loose-fitting cotton shirt, his eyes hidden behind small round glasses.

“So looking back and seeing that it’s been over 40 years since the first hits makes you think, ‘Is there a time that you stop?’ ” he continued. “But I don’t think I’m ever going to stop. It’s the only challenge I have left in my life.”

Onstage, Diamond is a slightly muted version of the showman he has always been, belting his songs in a still powerful baritone and punctuating the climaxes by pointing straight up to the rafters. Only his hair is much different: thinned, cropped short and streaked with gray.

At the XL Center, more than 12,000 fans rose to their feet and shouted when he began the opening number, Holly Holy, though most had sat back down by the second verse — they’re getting older, too.

Behind the showbiz persona, Diamond is known as a particularly hard-working performer and songwriter, devoted to steady routines.

When writing songs, he said, he keeps copious notes on yellow legal pads and lugs the paperwork around in dozens of shopping bags. On tour, he has his meals sent by FedEx every day from a dietary consultant in California. Backstage at the XL Center, he warmed up his band with light calisthenics and a group whoop, and announced, “This is the 16th time we’ve played this building.”

“I want to know what marathon runners do,” Diamond said in his dressing room, where the few items on his dressing table included a bottle of Gatorade, a tin of gummy lozenges and a glass of red wine. “Because I do the same thing. I run a two-hour marathon every time onstage. So I have my electrolytes kept at a certain level, and I do my carb-loading after the shows for the next night.”

Home Before Dark and his previous album, 12 Songs, run counter to type, with clean, clear arrangements that for the most part steer clear of Diamond’s hallmark histrionics. Like Rod Stewart’s and Barry Manilow’s recent albums, they amount to a strategic move to reinvent Diamond’s public face, and they got him some of his first serious critical attention in decades.

“Somehow it’s dawning on me that I’m a more mature individual and I’m not a kid writing Cherry, Cherry anymore,” Diamond said, referring to his first Top 10 hit, from 1966.

Home Before Dark arrived with a high-profile marketing campaign that included an appearance on American Idol, and it reached No. 1 in its first week, with sales of 146,000. But after the initial splash, it fell far down the chart. A week ago, in its 13th week out, the album was at No. 135, with 350,000 in total sales, according to Nielsen SoundScan — well below blockbuster level.

That sales trajectory has become more common in recent years, as record companies have pushed hard for a strong opening week at the expense of future sales, said Geoff Mayfield, Billboard’s director of charts. “There’s been so much concentration on first-week sales,” Mayfield said, “that after that happens, where do you go? You have gravity, and it goes down.”

But it also suggests that Diamond’s newer material has limited appeal for his core audience. In concert, Diamond the performer was for the most part unreinvented, playing hit after hit from the 1960s and ’70s to roaring applause. By contrast, the response to three songs from his new album was notably quiet.

Linda Aronie, a 56-year-old fan from Canton, Conn., said after the show that she was lukewarm about the new material. “I have to be honest, I’m not crazy about it,” she said. “It just doesn’t seem like him.”

Diamond said he was not bothered by the response to the new songs.

“I already have Sweet Caroline,’ ” he said. “Most of these people haven’t heard Hell Yeah or Man of God, but I see them and they’re listening, and that’s really all I want.”

Toward the end of the concert, right after a string of megahits, including You Don’t Bring Me Flowers and I’m a Believer, which he wrote for the Monkees, Diamond told the crowd he had no plans for retirement.

“This is my job,” he said. “Someone much greater than me gave me that job. He said, ‘You, you with that stupid look on your face — go out and sing until I tell you to stop.’ I haven’t heard the word yet so I’m just going to keep doing it.”