Woolly rock group bleats 'Baa Baa Black Sheep'

Are Jeff Mutton and his new bleaters out to fleece the public, or just pull the wool over their eyes?

The latest record over British radios and jukeboxes is the old nursery rhyme ''Baa Baa Black Sheep'' in the baa-ing of sheep themselves. The new record was the brainchild of record tycoon Richard Branson, whose aunt grazes a flock of black Welsh mountain sheep near Norwich. He noted that her sheep bleated in many tones, and recordings of the flock showed that it was only a question of separating out the ones that fitted the nursery rhyme notes.

The sheepish flip-side is ''Rock Around the Flock.''