The first wah pedal was created by Bradley J. Plunkett at Warwick Electronics Inc./
Thomas Organ Company in November 1966. This pedal is the original
prototype made from a
transistorized MRB (mid-range boost)
potentiometer bread-boarded circuit and the housing of a
Vox Continental Organ
volume pedal. The concept, however, was not new. Country guitar virtuoso
Chet Atkins had used a similar, self-designed device on his late 1950s recordings of "Hot Toddy" and "Slinkey". Jazz guitarist
Peter Van Wood had a modified
Hammond organ expression pedal; he recorded in 1955 a version of
George Gershwin's "
Summertime" with a "crying" tone, and other recordings including humorous "novelty" effects. A DeArmond Tone and Volume pedal was used in the early 1960s by
Big Jim Sullivan, notably in some
Krew Cats instrumental tracks, and in
Dave Berry's song "
The Crying Game". The creation of the modern wah pedal was an accident which stemmed from the redesign of the
Vox Super Beatle
guitar amplifier in 1966. Warwick Electronics Inc. also owned Thomas Organ Company and had earlier entered into an agreement with
Jennings Musical Instruments (JMI) of England for Thomas to distribute the Vox name and products in the United States. In addition to distributing the British-made Vox amplifiers, the Thomas Organ Company also designed and manufactured much of the Vox equipment sold in the US. The more highly regarded British Vox amplifiers were designed by Dick Denney and made by JMI, the parent company of Vox. Warwick assigned Thomas Organ Company to create a new product line of
solid state Vox amplifiers called Vox Amplifonic Orchestra, which included the Super Beatle amplifier, named to capitalize on the Vox brand name's popularity in association with
the Beatles, who used the JMI English Vox amplifiers such as the famous
Vox AC30. The US-made Vox product line development was headed by musician and bandleader
Bill Page. While creating the Vox Amplifonic Orchestra, the Thomas Organ Company decided to create an American-made equivalent of the British Vox amplifier but with
transistorized (solid state) circuits, rather than
vacuum tubes, which would be less expensive to manufacture. During the re-design of the USA Vox amplifier, Stan Cuttler, head engineer of Thomas Organ Company, assigned Brad Plunkett, a junior electronics engineer, to replace the expensive Jennings 3-position mid-range boost (MRB) circuit switch with a transistorized solid state
MRB circuit. Plunkett had lifted and bread-boarded a transistorized tone-circuit from the Thomas Organ (an electric solid state transistorized organ) to duplicate the Jennings 3-position circuit. After adjusting and testing the amplifier with an
electronic oscillator and
oscilloscope, Plunkett connected the output to the speaker and tested the circuit audibly. At that point, several engineers and technical consultants, including Bill Page and
Del Casher, noticed the sound effect caused by the circuit. Page insisted on testing this bread-boarded circuit while he played his saxophone through an amplifier. John Glennon, an assistant junior electronics engineer with the Thomas Organ Company, was summoned to bring a volume control pedal which was used in the Vox Continental Organ so that the transistorized MRB potentiometer bread-boarded circuit could be installed in the pedal's housing. After the installation, Page began playing his saxophone through the pedal and asked Joe Banaron, CEO of Warwick Electronics Inc./Thomas Organ Company, to listen to the effect. At this point, the first electric guitar was plugged into the prototype wah pedal by guitarist Del Casher who suggested to Joe Banaron that this was a guitar effects pedal rather than a wind instrument effects pedal. Banaron, being a fan of the
big band style of music, was interested in marketing the wah pedal for wind instruments as suggested by Page rather than for the electric guitar as suggested by Casher. After a remark by Casher to Banaron regarding the
Harmon mute style of trumpet playing in the famous recording of "
Sugar Blues" from the 1930s, Banaron decided to market the wah-wah pedal using
Clyde McCoy's name for endorsement. After the invention of the wah pedal, the prototype was modified by Casher and Plunkett to better accommodate the harmonic qualities of the electric guitar. However, since Vox had no intention of marketing the wah pedal for electric guitar players, the prototype wah-wah pedal was given to Del Casher for performances at Vox press conferences and film scores for
Universal Pictures. The un-modified version of the Vox wah pedal was released to the public in February 1967 with an image of Clyde McCoy on the bottom of the pedal. Warwick Electronics Inc. assigned Lester L. Kushner, an engineer with the Thomas Organ Company, and Brad Plunkett to write and submit the documentation for the wah-wah pedal patent. The patent application was submitted on 24 February 1967, which included technical diagrams of the pedal being connected to a four-stringed "guitar" (as noted from the "Description of the Preferred Embodiment"). Warwick Electronics Inc. was granted ("foot-controlled continuously variable preference circuit for musical instruments") on 22 September 1970. Early versions of the Clyde McCoy featured an image of McCoy on the bottom panel, which soon gave way to only his signature. Thomas Organ then wanted the effect branded as their own for the American market, changing it to Cry Baby which was sold in parallel to the Italian Vox V846. Thomas Organ's failure to trademark the Cry Baby name soon led to the market being flooded with Cry Baby imitations from various parts of the world, including Italy, where all of the original Vox and Cry Babys were made. JEN, who had been responsible for the manufacture of Thomas Organ and Vox wah pedals, also made rebranded pedals for companies such as
Fender and
Gretsch and under their own JEN brand. When Thomas Organ moved production completely to Sepulveda, California and Chicago, Illinois these Italian models continued to be made and are among the more collectible wah pedals today. 's VOX Wah Wah guitar effects pedal, as used on
Obscured by Clouds (1972), displayed at the
Pink Floyd: Their Mortal Remains exhibition Some of the most famous electric guitarists of the day were keen to adopt the wah-wah pedal soon after its release. Among the first recordings featuring wah-wah pedal were "
Tales of Brave Ulysses" by
Cream with
Eric Clapton on guitar and "
Burning of the Midnight Lamp" by the
Jimi Hendrix Experience, both released in 1967. Hendrix also used wah wah on his famous song "
Voodoo Child", in intro and in soloing. According to Del Casher, Hendrix learned about the pedal from
Frank Zappa, another well-known early user. Clapton, in particular, used the device on many of the
Cream songs included on their second and third albums,
Disraeli Gears (1967) and
Wheels of Fire (1968) respectively. Clapton would subsequently employ it again on "
Wah-Wah", from his good friend
George Harrison's solo album
All Things Must Pass, upon the dissolution of
The Beatles in 1970. The wah-wah pedal increased in popularity in the following years, and was employed by guitarists such as
Terry Kath of
Chicago,
Martin Barre of
Jethro Tull,
Jimmy Page of
Led Zeppelin, and
Tony Iommi of
Black Sabbath.
Kirk Hammett of
Metallica would later use the pedal on many Metallica songs, most notably the guitar solo of
Enter Sandman.
David Gilmour of
Pink Floyd used the pedal to create the "whale" effect during
Echoes. He discovered this effect as a result of a roadie accidentally plugging his guitar into the output of the pedal and the input being plugged into his amp. The effect was first used during live performances of
The Embryo during 1970 but was then switched into
Echoes as it was being developed before being released on the
Meddle album on 31 October 1971.
Mick Ronson used a Cry Baby while recording
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.
Michael Schenker also utilized the pedal in his work. One of the most famous uses of this effect is heard on
Isaac Hayes's "
Theme from Shaft" (1971), with
Charles Pitts playing the guitar. In addition to rock music, many R&B artists have also used the wah-wah effect, including
Lalo Schifrin on "
Enter the Dragon" (1973), Johnny Pate on "Shaft in Africa" (1973) and James Brown on "
Funky President" (1974). Funk band
Kool & the Gang,
B. T. Express, and
Jimmy Castor Bunch used the wah-wah pedal also. Melvin Ragin, better known by the nickname
Wah Wah Watson, was a member of the Motown Records studio band, The Funk Brothers, where he recorded with artists such as
The Temptations on "
Papa Was a Rollin' Stone",
Marvin Gaye on "
Let's Get It On",
The Four Tops,
Gladys Knight & the Pips,
The Supremes, and
The Undisputed Truth on "
Smiling Faces Sometimes". In the late 1980s, the wah-wah pedal was revived in the British music industry by
John Squire of
The Stone Roses, who bought a wah-wah pedal to differentiate his sound from other contemporary acts of the time. Afterwards, the wah-wah pedal would also be used by bands such as
the Happy Mondays and
the Charlatans, and became one of the defining sounds of British guitar music in the late '80s and early '90s. == Uses ==