Harrell, Beryl, 1918-1977

Beryl Deane Harrell was born on September 23, 1918 in Vancouver, Washington, the family eventually relocated to Los Angeles, California. Hawaiian music was very popular throughout the 1920s, 1930s, and the 1940s-Beryl was taught how to play the steel guitar by Sol Hoʻopiʻi, who was acknowledged to be one of the greatest steel guitarists in history. Hoʻopiʻi taught lessons in Los Angeles which is where he taught Beryl Harrell. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s Harrell played steel guitar in all-girl groups like the Sweethearts of the Air, the Hula Bluettes, and the Four Co-eds Orchestra.

During Harrell's tenure with the Four Co-eds, she met a fighter plane mechanic named Carl Triolo and they were married in 1943. Their son, Don, was born in 1944. Triolo left Harrell and their son soon after his birth and the marriage was officially over three years later.

After World War II, Harrell began to perform at country western clubs around Los Angeles.

Harrell married Roy Ball, a drummer for Carl Cody and his Southerners in 1949.

In 1954 Harrell moved to Las Vegas, Nevada to work with Polly Possum and husband Sunny Joe Wolverton. She worked with the Polly Possum Show for the two years playing alternating stints at the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas and the Riverside Hotel in Reno.

In 1961 Harrell and Ball were divorced and she shortly therafter joined another all-female trio, the Honey B's, who performed regularly at the El Cortz Hotel. Throughout the 1960s Harrell performed at the Silver Dollar, a well-known western music club at the time. Eventually, Harrell quit the music business altogether by 1963. She stayed in Las Vegas working as a hotel PBX operator at the Desert Inn. In 1977, Harrell wrote a letter to her son Don and committee suicide.