Child’s Play: Country’s Kiddie Tunes : Music: ‘Country Music for Kids,’ with an all-star lineup, is a mix of traditional, original songs specifically for the younger set.

There was a farmer had a dog, And Bingo was his name-o!

Country music’s legendary Merle Haggard singing “Bingo” on a children’s record is about as incongruous as Bob Dylan’s rendition of “This Old Man” on last year’s pop all-star album “For the Children,” from Walt Disney Records.

Sing it Haggard does--smooth and sweet--on Disney’s latest all-star effort, “Country Music for Kids,” this one a for-profit venture, unlike “For the Children,” which benefited the Pediatric AIDS Foundation.

Hard-livin’ Haggard joins Glen Campbell, the Oak Ridge Boys, Emmylou Harris, Patty Loveless, Earl Scruggs, Buck Owens, Mary-Chapin Carpenter and more in an exceptionally smooth mix of traditional and original country songs specifically for children.

In other words, no cheatin’ hearts, bar songs or ballads about unrequited love here.

Herb Pedersen, who co-produced the album with Jay Levy, was thrilled with Haggard’s enthusiastic participation. “I’m probably the only producer in town who has gotten Merle Haggard to laugh on a record.”

“When we were recording that song,” Levy said, “Merle was doing the greatest dance. Then he did a little laugh at the end and Herb and I looked at each other. We knew we were going to keep it.”

When Levy came to him with the album idea, Pedersen--founder of the respected Desert Rose Band and who, like Levy, has extensive credits in music, film and television--”called the people I had worked with in the past that I thought would work conceptually with what we were doing.

“I had no negative responses at all,” he said, although some “label heads were a little leery” because they “weren’t sure that they wanted their artists involved unless there was another artist involved of equal stature.”

(Campbell apparently gave the lineup some thought. “Jay and them called me to see if I wanted to do one of the songs and I said, ‘Well, get it together and if everyone else goes along, sure’--and then I heard Emmylou was doing one and Merle Haggard and Patty Loveless. . . . “)

Haggard didn’t hesitate. “When Herb Pedersen called me, I said sure. I’ve been interested in doin’ something like this for some time.” Indeed, “there’s a very good chance” that the country star will do “a whole children’s album. Disney’s interested,” he said. “We’re talkin’ about it.”

Haggard, who has four grown children plus a 2 1/2-year-old daughter, knew right away what he wanted to sing.

“ ‘Bingo’ is my little girl’s favorite song,” he said. “I’ve just kind of got interested in doin’ all that stuff because of her.

“Besides,” he added, “a mellow side of Merle Haggard is probably due anyway.”

(Country music for kids isn’t a new idea, of course. In August, Kid Rhino will release “Cowboy Songs,” featuring original tracks recorded for children by Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Tex Ritter, Vaughn Monroe and others.)

In making the Disney album, the producers had to cope with the stars’ varying schedules. “Herb and I got on planes a lot,” Levy recalled.

They taped Campbell singing Levy and Pedersen’s celebratory “I Love to Play Outside” in Phoenix, then “got a puddle jumper” to Haggard’s ranch in the Mount Shasta area.

In Nashville, they caught up with 1992 Grammy winner Carpenter, Harris, Scruggs and Loveless. Carpenter contributed a caressing rendition of “Jenny Dreamed of Trains,” a haunting ballad by Vince Gill and Guy Clark, while Harris did a soaring version of “On the Wings of Horses,” written by Peter Rowan and his daughter Amanda.

Scruggs, “the father of bluegrass banjo,” jauntily picked his way through “Baby Had a Banjo”:

Baby had a tantrum,

He was such an ornery boy.

He’d cuss and fuss till he turned blue,

If you touched his five-string toy.

Pedersen, who co-wrote with Levy, did the bouncy vocal.

In Hendersonville, the pair recorded their fresh arrangement of “Oh, Susanna!,” sung by the Oak Ridge Boys with soulful beauty.

David Grisman was flown in from Northern California “to do his mandolin” and Tom Brumley from Missouri for the steel guitar part, joining several top-notch musicians who provide accompaniment.

Loveless said she felt at home with Levy and Pedersen’s lilting ode to a preschooler’s insatiable curiosity, “So Many Questions, So Little Time.”

“When I first got signed to MCA Records, I did songs for kids here in Nashville schools,” she said, “and there are many, many times I baby-sat for friends and family. This is perfect, ‘cause, bless their hearts, they do ask a lot of questions and the song says it’s OK to ask, ‘cause that’s how you learn.”

Loveless feels that country music “puts across some kind of warmth” that “kids pick up on. It makes them feel good.”

Other cuts include Desert Rose Band member Chris Hillman’s bluegrass arrangement of the traditional “Little Birdie” and Buck Owens’ upbeat vocal on “If You Can’t Find a Reason to Be Happy,” Levy and Pedersen’s comforting acknowledgment that kids’ problems are important, too.

A children’s chorus wraps things up with Levy’s soothing “Country Lullaby.”

Despite the all-star roster’s obvious commercial appeal for adults, the album’s focus is on children, the producers say. “There are so many things in the media that children are exposed to that may not be in their best interests,” Levy said. “We’ve tried to do something that’s positive, loving and kind.”