Age Is No Impediment to Singing Herself Silly : Kid stuff: Joanie Bartels, who sings at Wild Rivers on Sunday, appeals to children and their parents with a mix of rock oldies and original funny tunes.

When Joanie Bartels recorded her first children’s album in a garage in 1985, she was not expecting children’s music to become her full-time career. Nine years later, she is near the top of the field, with a gold record to her credit, 2.5 million of her numerous recordings sold, a home video series and plans for a TV show.

The success of Bartels--and of her label, Discovery Music, the Van Nuys-based independent that skillfully and shrewdly developed the singer--attracted the attention last year of entertainment giant BMG, which is absorbing Discovery and its artists into its children’s wing, BMG Kidz.

These days, between audio and video recordings, Bartels, assured and youthful at 41, regularly crisscrosses the country to perform. She’ll be at Wild Rivers in Laguna Hills on Sunday at 2 p.m.; she says parents and children should come prepared to “really let their hair down and have fun with a lot of dancing, silliness and sing-along stuff.”

A Los Angeles resident whose background is in adult rock ‘n’ roll and jazz, she makes intergenerational participation easy. She mixes musical styles, though rock oldies and original humorous pop-style songs predominate, from such ‘50s and ‘60s classics as “La Bamba” and “Bare Footin’ ” to her own catchy ditties about “Silly Pie” and be-bopping Martians and dinosaurs.

Children’s music can be cloying in repeated doses, but Bartels has staying power with polished, easy vocals notable for their mellow clarity. Her obvious career savvy is partnered by a disarming enthusiasm.

“Part of it is that I’m still kind of a kid myself,” she said recently. “I can get out there and still be goofy and silly and play.”

She is especially enthusiastic about her new “Simply Magic” videos. The first two in the series, “The Rainy Day Adventure” and “The Extra-Special Substitute Teacher,” have given her a chance to show off her acting skills in a story format.

“What we’re hoping to do next is a pilot for a children’s TV show, ‘Joanie’s Juke Box Cafe,’ ” a sitcom with music based on aher new audio series.

Bartels began her career singing folk music in Massachusetts coffeehouses. That led to regular gigs with rock and jazz bands and studio work as a backup singer.

In 1985, Ellen Wohlstadter, a young mother and head of production at RSO records, called Bartels with an idea for a lullaby album, the first in what would become Discovery Music’s “Magic Series” of themed audio recordings (bedtime, bath time, travel time) for parents, infants and toddlers.

Bartels, one of many who auditioned, got the job thanks to her “incredible voice” and her sincere interest in the project, according to co-producer David Wohlstadter, Ellen’s husband.

For Bartels, the rewards were unexpected. “What I had been doing was great, but none of it compares to what I’m doing now. It’s a much healthier lifestyle, much more positive.”

She didn’t start out with star billing. Initially, the recordings weren’t even marketed in her name because “no one knew who Joanie was,” David recalled.

Ellen “pounded the pavement” and successfully placed “Lullaby Magic” on consignment in Westside and Valley specialty and juvenile stores as an impulse buy during the 1985 Christmas season. “That’s the point we knew we had found a niche and started exploiting it,” David said.

A few years later, as more and more people seeking recordings began asking for Bartels by name, “we started switching the direction of the marketing, toward developing Joanie as a children’s artist.”

Meanwhile, competition in the field was growing, and such major labels as A&M; began signing artists.

“It was Raffi who put children’s music on the map,” Bartels said, “so that it wasn’t just a $2.99 album you picked up at Kmart. He really started working with children and child development through music; he opened the door for a lot of artists on the national level.”

However, Discovery’s years of focus, patience and grass-roots marketing on behalf of a concept and a single artist still are a phenomenon in the hit-driven recording industry, which has signed artists and then dropped them when immediate results weren’t forthcoming. Discovery has maintained its formula, using it to develop two other artists, Dennis Hysom and Bethie.

Now that the label and its artists are being absorbed by BMG, Wohlstadter says he and his wife will be “exploring new opportunities in the children’s entertainment field. . . . We’re out pitching TV shows for (Bartels, Hysom and Bethie) to cable, network, syndication and PBS.”

Singing is Bartels’ first love, though. “My mom told me that when I was about 3,” she said, “I saw Rosemary Clooney, probably on the Mitch Miller show or on ‘Ed Sullivan.’ She said from that I was just transformed, and I said I wanted to sing like that.

“I’m sure part of it was that she looked like an angel with her blond, blond hair that probably, on our black-and-white TV set, looked like it was glowing.”

* Joanie Bartels sings Sunday at 2 p.m. at Wild Rivers, 8770 Irvine Center Drive, Laguna Hills, as part of the KCAL Fun Fest, a health and safety expo that will run from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and that also will feature children’s singer Dan Crow. Free with regular park admission, $12.95 to $16.95. (213) 960-3733.