Berwyn, Ill. ? The lighting is dim and the bar carries the faint, stale smell of beer. But Ralph Covert is looking fresh and ready to rock and roll.

So are his young fans some so young they’ve just risen from an afternoon nap before cramming with their parents into FitzGerald’s, a popular music venue in suburban Chicago that usually caters to the older set.

With Ralph’s World a whirlwind of songs, dancing and general silliness Covert is distinguishing himself as a singer-songwriter who’s found a magic formula: His music appeals to kids AND their parents.

“I was lousy at being a mild nursery school teacher,” says Covert, a longtime Chicago rocker who developed his latest repertoire while teaching classes for children at the Oldtown School of Folk Music.

“The more I brought my rock ‘n’ roll energy to it, the more parents had fun, the kids had fun and the more I had fun,” says Covert, whose albums include both originals and revamped cover songs.

One song from the first Ralph’s World CD combines the popular KC & the Sunshine Band tunes “Get Down Tonight” and “Shake Your Booty” though with a few lyric changes. “Do a little dance. Make a little love,” for example, becomes “Eat a little lunch. Take a little nap.”

His second album, released this spring, features a reworked rendition of the Robert Leroy Johnson blues song “Dust My Broom” renamed “Clean My Room.”

Another tune on the disc features the line “M-o-m-m-y needs c-o-f-f-e-e.” And Covert calls yet another track the “Quentin Tarantino version of the ‘Itsy Bitsy Spider,”‘ because it features a multi-tattooed arachnid.

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The combination of adult and child humor, packaged in catchy tunes, is getting Covert noticed.

Billboard magazine called his debut CD “one of the finest kids’ audio releases of this or any year.” And reviews for his latest disc have been as glowing, as Covert hits the summer concert circuit.

“It beats the heck out of some of the same old mundane stuff that’s out there for kids,” says Debbie Sanders, a mom from Bolingbrook, Ill., who brought 6-year-old daughter Samantha to the concert.

Samantha sits patiently, wearing a long leopard-print jacket and cat mask in honor of her favorite Ralph’s World song “Malcolm McGillikitty,” about a psychic cat.

When Covert and his band hit the stage, she and others erupt in squeals and applause.

“I worked up some special new boring songs,” he tells his young fans.

“Awwwwww,” they moan, feigning disappointment and then giggling as Covert sings a few monotone bars before breaking out the “fun songs,” which are as much about activity as good music.

The fans shout their favorite colors for the song “All My Colors.” They lift their shirts to expose their bellies for the “Belly Button Song.”

And they flail their arms to pretend to swim during “At the Bottom of the Sea,” the title track from Covert’s most recent CD.

Covert, who grew up in South Dakota, was himself a music fan early on.

It started when one of his camp counselors played the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” album repeatedly. Covert went on to learn the guitar and start his first band, The Purple Termites.

Much later, after moving to Chicago, he led a popular rock band called the Bad Examples.

Playing for kids wasn’t what he thought he’d be doing at age 39.

“I did it because I had fun making music with kids and their parents,” says Covert, who gets some of his inspiration and advice from 7-year-old daughter Fiona.