Songs of a Kinder, Gentler Wild West for Pint-Sized Buckaroos and their Folks, Too

The Grammy-winning (and Parents’ Choice award-winning, too) duo the Okee Dokee Brothers have made an utterly charming album for pint-sized buckaroos that, wonder of wonders, will likely not irritate their parents, either. “Saddle Up,” written while the band was on a monthlong horseback camping trip, is a good-time hootenanny that, like a batch of brownies secretly laced with beets or zucchini, painlessly – even deliciously – delivers worthwhile messages for the younger set via soft, earnest harmonies and twangy guitars.

Amid sweet lullabies, tall tales and goofy wit there are also songs like “Shootin’ Star,” which repudiates gunfighting; “Somos Amigos,” whose mariachi horns buoy up a cheery message of unity and brotherhood between different cultures; “Sister Moon and Brother Sun,” an engaging Native American creation ballad, and “Tall Talkin’ Sam,” in which the rootin’, tootin’ big-mouthed cowboy is, in fact, a cowgirl. It’s pitch-perfect old-time country subtly grounded in 21^st-century values: a tolerant, nonviolent Wild West, both gender and ethnicity-diverse, that still swings hard enough for the grown-ups to dance a two-step.