ENTERING DIAMOND COUNTRY\Singer flexing Nashville songwriting chops on album, tour and\tonight's TV special Daily News Wire Services.

Countless pop artists have gone to Nashville to rekindle their songwriting skills in recent years. Jimmy Buffett and Steve Winwood are prime examples. The latest is Neil Diamond, who admitted to a serious case of writer's block before he teamed with Nashville tunesmiths to create his best album in the past decade.

The album, "Tennessee Moon," boasts Diamond collaborations with 15 Nashville writers, among them Raul Malo (of the Mavericks), Gary Burr and Gretchen Peters. It also has guest appearances from Waylon Jennings, Chet Atkins, Hal Ketchum and notable newcomer Buffy Lawson.

Diamond, who has a Nashville-based special on KABC (Channel 7) at 10 tonight (followed by a tour), lived in Nashville last year to shake his writer's cramp. "I had not been able to get myself to complete songs," he said recently. "I had started songs that I really liked, but had not been really motivated. Columbia (Records) had given me the easy way out by letting me do Christmas albums. But I felt a definite need to write again and express myself."

That's an odd comment from an artist who once churned out dozens of songs in the Tin Pan Alley heyday in Manhattan. Diamond was a staff writer at the famed Brill Building, where he rubbed shoulders with Carole King, Phil Spector, Burt Bacharach and the team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller.

Nor should people forget that Diamond's songbook includes such pop chestnuts as "Cracklin' Rosie," "Sweet Caroline," "Song Sung Blue," "Cherry, Cherry," "I'm a Believer" (a hit for the Monkees) and "Red Red Wine" (a hit for UB40).

For the last decade, Diamond, 55, has been relatively dormant as a writer, but extremely active as a performer, selling out multiple nights in city after city. But the new "Tennessee Moon" disc restores his reputation as a front-ranking song sculptor. Diamond says he hasn't felt so good about one of his new records since "The Jazz Singer."

"It does hearken back to the simplicity of a lot of my early records," Diamond said during an interview at a hotel near Vanderbilt University. He chomped on a cigar and chuckled amiably at the suggestion some will see him as another faded pop star looking to ride on country music's commercial coattails.

"No, that doesn't worry me. The songs tell the story. You can't hide. It's out there for people to reach conclusions about."

"Tennessee Moon's" generous 18 songs show some obvious country influence - this marks the first time he has combined fiddle and pedal steel guitar on an album - but it also shines with acoustic rock, heart-on-sleeve ballads and a surprise talking blues.

The latter is represented by the aptly named "Talking Optimist Blues," which for rhythmic energy rivals his earlier hit "Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show."

Co-writing, which Diamond rarely had done before, appears to have been the right strategy to beat a slight writer's block.

"For some reason in the late '80s I became discontent to a certain degree to what was happening with the songs I was writing," he said.

"The airplay that I used to get wasn't there, so I kind of backpedaled on the writing. It became a secondary thing."

Another advantage to being Neil Diamond is a fan base so loyal he didn't need to have hit records to sell concert tickets. So he decided to do some serious touring while he was young enough to take the physical strain.

"I always felt that I could write way into my 90s," he said.

Those fans who have defended Diamond against charges of pomposity will really love this record. Many songs echo his taut acoustic rock period of "Cherry, Cherry" and "Solitary Man," arguably his finest hours. The echoes come in the brisk, Everly Brothers-like "No Limit" (the opening guitar chords recall the Everlys' hit "Wake Up, Little Susie"), as well as in the twangy "Matter of Love" and title track "Tennessee Moon." On it, he fires a shot at his past digs in Los Angeles ("Hollywood don't do what once it could do") and explains why he ventured to Nashville "in search of a dream under a Tennessee moon."

Diamond even remakes his earlier hit "Kentucky Woman," infusing it with new zest. And there would appear to be at least several possible adult-contemporary hits here, such as "Reminisce for a While" (with Malo's tenor voice on backup, though it should be mixed more prominently), "Can Anybody Hear Me" and "Like You Do."

Diamond's most personal songs are "Open Wide These Prison Doors" (what appears to be a critique of his most recent marriage) and the bittersweet "Win This Way," in which he critiques himself for often letting his work shatter his domestic life. "I was always trying to win the world," he sings. "What on earth was I thinking of?"

Diamond's disarming candor - and his rejuvenated melodic skills - make this an album that his fans won't have to make any excuses for. He even writes a song with his son, Jesse, called "Everybody," which declares: "If you want to find someone, then all you have to do is show it." Diamond shows plenty on this record, which is one of the best of his career, let alone the past decade.

That may be the most important advantage of being Neil Diamond - to be so famous and successful that you make million-dollar decisions based on how much fun is to be had. Columbia will push "One Good Love," a duet with Jennings, to country radio stations. At the same time, "Can Anybody Hear Me" will be pushed to pop and adult contemporary stations. An international tour to promote "Tennessee Moon" will last two years.

After 30 years of more ups than downs, Diamond knows there are still no guarantees, even if you are Neil Diamond.

"It's just as likely to be a big failure as a big success, although the first reactions to the album have been really heartening," Diamond said. "But you take a chance every time you go out."

The show: "Neil Diamond"

The stars: Neil Diamond with Waylon Jennings, Chet Atkins, Beth Nielsen Chapman, Buffy Lawson and Mark O'Connor.

When: 10 tonight on KABC (Channel 7).

Neil Diamond kept busy with Christmas albums before ending his writer's block with "Tennessee Moon."

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Neil Diamond kept busy with Christmas albums before ending this writer's block with "Tennessee Moon."