We are Larry & Karen Doran, a musical duet, “The Mellow D’s”.
Thank you for visiting our site!

Since our last name begins with the letter “D” and we do perform in a mellow manner, “The Mellow D’s” was the only logical choice for our group name! And if you say it fast, it sounds like “melodies” which is a pretty good tag for a couple of musical entertainers.

Check out our music page, we've got several albums available.
We specialize in Classic Country, Golden Oldies Rock 'n Roll, Country Gospel, Novelty and Comedy routines.

I've now added music players on the Music page, so you can listen to songs I've written.  Of course, we're hoping you like them well enough to order our CD's!

We still perform the way Jimmy Rogers, Hank and Lefty and many others did when they started out.  No massive orchestra, no drums, no over-produced arrangements.  Just good ol' country music, done clean with vocals, harmony and my distinctive style of guitar, so you can actually sing along and understand the lyrics.

Exciting things keep happening for us;

November 4th & 5th, 2011;

Traveled to Malvern, Iowa for a Country Music Festival.  We arrived at 5:30PM and performed until 11:00!  On Saturday morning, we returned to the Liberty Auditorium (What a neat facility!) and started up again.  Some great entertainers showed up, and we had a terrific time.  It was well after midnight when we simply ran out of gas.  But there were other younger folks who were still going strong, picking and grinning.  It was great to see so many of our friends from that area again!

October 17, 2011; After we left Branson, we went on to Nashville.  I've heard that you can get your picture taken on the old Grand Ol' Opry stage at the Ryman Auditorium, so I added that to my bucket list. 

When we visited the Ryman, we not only got our photo taken, we actually got to do a live performance of my original song "I Wish George Jones Would Listen To My Songs" from that famous Grand Ol' Opry stage!

I am absolutely flying high! Today, we accomplished something I never thought I would experience in my lifetime.  Performing from that stage where so many country music legends also performed, is an event that I'll relive and cherish for the rest of my life.

When we finished, we actually receive a standing ovation from the tourists and Ryman staff.  That was another totally unexpected and wonderful experience.

We then completed our tour of the Ryman, and were stopped several times by folks wanting information about our website and how to get our albums.  I'm just blown away.

And the funniest part was, as we were leaving the folks at the entry to the auditorium saw us coming and actually yelled, "There they are!  The Mellow D's!"  All of the other tourists stretched and strained to see us, thinking we must really be hot Nashville entertainers!  What fun!

October 12, 2011; The morning after we performed at the sock hop, Karen and I left for Branson.  We saw some great shows, and I wound up on stage with Barbara Fairchild at her show.  What a delightful lady!  Her husband, Roy Morris, found out I am a songwriter, and arranged for me to present Barbara with our album of original Gospel songs.  You never know...

October 8, 2011; Tonight, we performed at a dance patterned after the "Sock Hops" of the fifties!  We had a great time playing those old fifties hits that my band "The Casuals" performed back when we were much younger, touring all over North Texas.  Karen and I were the foundation for the new group, and were fortunate to find a great rock drummer, Bruce Zimmerman, and Emily Eberspacher, a beautiful fifteen-year-old girl who plays a mean bass guitar!  (You should hear her tear up the bass riff on Mustang Sally!)

We were joined by a local group, "Flashback" consisting of Bob & Cheryl Seng, and Dan Hall.  They do a great job on some of those older rock dance tunes.

Our good friend, Clark Kinnison, came down from Pierce, Nebraska, and volunteered to man two video cameras to capture our performance (warts and all!)

But what really made the even special for me was having my great friend, Jerry Havemann, who played lead guitar for me in our 1963 band in Texas, come all the way from Chicago to play lead guitar on stage with me again!  We named our new group "The Casuals", in honor of that reunion.  What an incredibile experience it was to be able to do that again after all these years!

Everone who came had an absolute blast, and I kept thinking, "Imagine what we could do if we had more than two days to rehearse with Jerry!"  Wow.

Sept 11, 2011; Today we performed at a Patriotic event, remembering those who were lost in an insane attack on America.  We attempted to make the event both a somber remembrance and a celebration of American resilience and resolve.  As we sang several patriotic numbers, the reactions we evoked from the audience were quite moving, and we had to struggle to keep from being choked up.  It was quite an event.

May God Bless America!

Sept 5, 2011; Just got back from the Nebraska State Fair, where we performed live with folks from the Nashville Songwriter's Association International (NSAI).  We had a great time with those folks, especially Ricky Vegas (aka Rick Hinrichsen).  Somehow, he talked us into doing some vintage Rock, and we wound up in a "Battle of the Rock and Roll Idols" with him.  Great fun, and terrific audience response.  Robert DeBusk, Daniel Christiansen and Dale Williams also performed and got very good responses as well.

Sept 2, 2011: We've just returned from a wonderful annual country music festival in Avoca, Iowa.  It's a four-day event with four live music stages and several jamming locations, full-service campgrounds, and multiple buildings to ensure everyone can stay dry in inclement weather.  You really need to put this one on your calendar if you have a hankering to hear good old live country music!

Karen and I are just thrilled that we were honored as the Best Country Music Duet at the festival!  Karen hasn't been singing harmony all that long, so it's quite a feather in her cap. 

What a terrific time we had with a great group of folks, and what fun to share our love for country music with like-minded people.

We've just signed with two organizations to perform every month in Grand Island and Hastings, Nebraska.  We've already been doing a monthly show in Hastings for the past six years!  It's a real challenge for us to develop a new show every month for those folks, but that's probably why they keep asking us back so often. 

Our biggest accomplishment so far was being inducted into America’s Old-Time Country Music Hall of Fame in August, 2006! Jerry Havemann, my good friend and lead guitarist from our 1963 band “The Casuals”, drove across country to witness the event, which made it even more personal and special. Wow! We’ve won numerous other awards for our talent, and you can review those in the pages that follow.

We've appeared on national Television shows, live radio shows, and we've perfomed live in nationally-known concerts, music festivals and parades across the United States.

We own "Wires and Wood Music Productions", a production company with our own recording studio.  We are accomplished recording artists, and are proud to announce that we now have seven albums available on CD's.

We've performed from Minnesota to Key West, Florida, and have even appeared onstage in Luckenbach, Texas, the inspiration for the song by Willie and Waylon!

We are self-sufficient, which means that we provide all of our own sound equipment, instruments and vocals. If you can provide electricity, a stage and an audience, we can put on a show for you.

Our rates are probably less than you might expect for entertainers with our experience and credentials, only because we're retired and have a passion for travel and entertaining.

Thanks to a man who gave me a guitar when I was seven years old, I’ve had a love for music all my life. I’ve developed a unique and distinctive method of playing guitar, but my real passion is for singing.

Karen kept her talent for harmony well hidden until just a few years ago. She says, “I knew if you found out, you’d drag me on stage in front of a lot of people!” Well, I did find out, and she was right. She has now developed into a poised and professional entertainer, as well as a terrific singer. I am SO proud of her!

Karen’s real passion is for live theatre, and I’m a big enough ham to be one of her actors. In return, she agreed to sing beautiful harmony to complete The Mellow D’s!

We are just plain excited about the doors that have opened for us and the opportunities presented to us. We love to bring smiles to happy faces by performing our music.  If you're looking for a pleasant performance with a good dose of good clean family fun, we are just what you're looking for. 

We will tailor our performances to Classic Country, Traditional Country, 50's & 60's Rock and Roll, Country Gospel, or any combination of those styles of music and there will always be a healthy dose of humor.

Tappin' toes, clappin' hands, and smilin' faces, that's how we like our audiences!

Check out our other pages for our schedule, pictures, and music samples!

Here's our contact information if you'd like to obtain booking information, rates, etc.  We like hearing from you!

The Mellow D's
Larry and Karen Doran
Box 218
McCool Junction, NE 68401
Home:  (402) 724-3151
Cell:    (402) 724-2474
larry@themellowds.com
karen@themellowds.com