Diamond tops US and UK charts for first time

The singer-songwriter Neil Diamond's new album Home Before Dark has gone straight to the top of the UK and US charts, the first time he has had a number one hit with original material in either country.

His double success comes 42 years after he released his first LP, The Feel of Neil Diamond. No other artist has taken so long from the start of their career to get to the top of the charts with an original work.

Diamond, 67, topped the British album charts 16 years ago with a greatest hits compilation.

But despite being one of the world's most commercially successful artists, selling 125 million records worldwide, notching up 36 Top 40 hits and winning a Grammy and a Golden Globe, none of his previous 45 studio albums have made it to the top spot on either side of the Atlantic.

His success was announced last night by the Official UK Chart Company and the US Billboard Top 200 chart.

Home Before Dark is the second of Diamond's albums to be produced by Rick Rubin, who was crucial to Johnny Cash's success in the latter years of his career. Rubin applied the same formula to Diamond's music as he did to Cash's, stripping down the songs to their very basics. Their first collaboration was 2005's 12 Songs, the first album in years to feature Diamond simply playing his guitar in a studio.

The critically acclaimed Home Before Dark again relies principally on guitars and keyboards for its sound, and Diamond's band includes Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench, the guitarist and keyboard player from Tom Petty's group The Heartbreakers.

Diamond is still probably best known for his early 1970s hits such as "Forever In Blue Jeans" and "Sweet Caroline", but was also responsible for a handful of songs which later became huge hits for other artists, including "I'm a Believer" for The Monkees and "Red Red Wine" for UB40.

He was born in 1941 in Brooklyn, New York, to Jewish immigrants from Poland. Inspired by movie portrayals of singing cowboys, he wrote his first song aged 15. He went to university to study medicine but dropped out to devote himself to songwriting, landing a deal for his first album in 1966.

He starts a European tour in Rotterdam on 24 May, and comes to the UK in June, playing venues in London, Birmingham, Manchester and Cardiff.