‘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 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.