Just when critics seemed ready to consign him to the 1980s nostalgia bin, John Mellencamp began to release some of the most surprising music of his career. Albums like Mr. Happy Go Lucky fulfilled the difficult transition the Indiana singer-songwriter began on Scarecrow from a clich馘 Bruce Springsteen of the heartland to an iconoclastic, dark-witted musical poet. Those charmed by Mellencamp's '90s renaissance will find this collection of unreleased studio recordings and live tracks to be further evidence of his growth as an artist. Largely recorded during a 1997 touring break, Mellencamp deconstructs previous work such as "Rain on the Scarecrow," "Jackie Brown," and "When Jesus Left Birmingham" and recasts them with a stripped-down, rootsy sensibility that's equal parts country and blues. It's much to his credit that these unadorned songs stand effortlessly alongside covers of early Bob Dylan ("Farewell Angelina" and the gritty "In My Time of Dying," a cover from Dylan's debut), as well as a deliciously folksy version of the Drifters' "Under the Boardwalk." A live take of Van Morrison's "Wild Night" is the only track here that stoops to Mellencamp's early persona, but set against the rest of the rest of this rustic jewel of an album it's a refreshing coda. Another gratifying surprise from an artist who refuses to be pigeonholed. --Jerry McCulley