Elsewhere the man assays two sweet tributes to his daughters ('Camille" and "Addie Rose"), duets with Steve Earle ("Bible And A Gun") plus offers up a quintet of taut rockers, including the unmatchable "Punk Rock Skunk" from one of his two Farmer Jason children's albums. Of these, a re-recorded "Life of the Party" (redone for the set since contractual craziness kept the original One Foot in the Honky Tonk track from being included) perhaps comes closest to the welcome blasts of the good ol' days, though All Over Creation's sonic collaboration with the Wildhearts, "One Less Heartache," has its own appealing radio friendly bombast.

The Side Tracks set is smaller (ten tracks to the first disc's 20) and definitely more marginal. But it still contains some goodies: an oblique new rocker entitled "The Sailor's Eyes;" an extended remix of a second Farmer Jason track, "Moose on the Loose;" an unjustly rejected track recorded for a Tom T. Hall album, plus a tribute to SIU's favorite son, "Buckminster Fuller We Need You." Though Ringenberg has relocated to the Nashville area, he always remains cognizant of his Midwestern roots. Back on disc one, he even includes a country rocker originally sung for Stace England's Greetings from Cairo, Illinois, lamenting the hard times that have befallen this notorious little lynch burg. Very alt-rootsy, very Southern Illinois . . .