‘Sesame Street’ Detours to Country : Folks like Loretta Lynn, Glen Campbell, Crystal Gayle and Tanya Tucker join the Muppet pals for some down-home tunes.

Children’s music, country style: Seems as if everybody’s doing it these days, even a certain eight-foot-high fowl with yellow feathers.

Golden Music’s “Sesame Country” album, to be released Friday, is the latest entry in the country for kids mode.

It’s a compilation of down-home tunes from past “Sesame Street” shows featuring familiar Muppet fuzzies and furries trading quips and chords with Crystal Gayle, Glen Campbell, Loretta Lynn and Tanya Tucker.

It may not rival Alvin and the gang’s hot seller, the Grammy-nominated “Chipmunks in Low Places,” but Muppet and country fans won’t be disappointed with this appealing, smoothly produced mix of light humor and music.

Big Bird is a gracious host, introducing the performers and unapologetically throwing in some bird banter: “How tweet it is.”

He kindly allows Glen Campbell to fill in for the inexplicably absent (and fictional) Bill Trumbell, even though Campbell can’t sing Trumbell’s big hit, “The Wichita Trashman,” Oscar the Grouch’s favorite.

When spider trouble keeps Miss Muffet away, Big Bird again puts aside his disappointment and welcomes Crystal Gayle in her place.

The guest artists provide the best tunes. “You’ll Never Take the Texas Out of Me” suits Tanya Tucker’s husky voice, Loretta Lynn gets cozy in a romantic duet with the Count (“You and I make two, and when you count to three, I’m in heaven, can’t you see”), he of the purple face and Bela Lugosi accent.

Campbell’s rendition of “Keep on Smilin,’ ” an alternative to Oscar’s frown, is an album highlight.

The piece de resistance, however, comes from Cookie Monster, never more eloquent or sensitive than in this poignant interpretation of “Last Cookie Roundup”: “Eat ‘em up Cookie, eye-aye. This is the last cookie roundup, get along little cookie, me eat you today.”

“Sesame Country.” Golden Music. Cassette: $8.99; CD: $11.99. Available at Sesame Street Stores, Walmart, K mart, Waldenkids Book Stores.

*

Capital Idea: A second local youth theater group has been scheduled to take part in one of the many Clinton inaugural celebrations. The Los Angeles Youth Ensemble, under the direction of Robin Share, drama teacher at Van Nuys High School, will present a short performance at the “Salute to Youth” event at the the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Jan. 19.

Share, a recent recipient of the Walt Disney Co.’s annual American Teacher Award for excellence in the classroom, was honored, along with other outstanding teachers, in a presentation on the Disney Channel in December.

On the show, her students performed “One Day in L.A.,” a seven-minute theater piece Share wrote about last year’s civil unrest in Los Angeles.

“A couple of weeks later,” Share said, “the producer for the Disney show,” who was working on the inaugural festivities, “asked if we’d like to perform at the Kennedy Center. They’re flying us out and putting us up.”

The 17-member ensemble, ranging in age from 15 to 20, will leave for Washington on Jan. 17 and return on the 20th.

Meanwhile, the Pasadena-based Save Our Youth Arts & Education organization will be performing its rap opera, “Graffiti Blues,” as part of the “America’s Reunion on the Mall,” the kick-off inaugural festival celebrating the country’s cultural diversity on Jan. 17-18.

*

All for One: An abbreviated theatrical production of Alexander Dumas’ “The Three Musketeers,” recommended for young audiences from third graders through high school, will be presented by Will & Company today at 3 and 8:30 p.m. at the Los Angeles Theatre Center downtown.

Will & Company, a nonprofit classical repertory theater company that has been touring area schools since 1988, has recently made the center its home base and will open its first full-scale production, Shakespeare’s “Comedy of Errors,” there on Jan. 22.

Other children’s shows, geared for all ages, will begin touring Los Angeles schools this month, according to youth coordinator Colleen Bachman.

Today’s “Musketeer” tickets are $5 per adult; children ages 16 and under are free.

Information: (310) 798-6291.