Wah-wah pedal
The wah-wah effect originated in the 1920s, with trumpet or trombone players finding they could produce an expressive crying tone by moving a mute in, and out of the instrument's bell.
Country guitar virtuoso Chet Atkins had used a similar, self-designed device on his late 1950s recordings of "Hot Toddy" and "Slinkey".
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".
At that point, several engineers and technical consultants, including Bill Page and Del Casher, noticed the sound effect caused by the circuit.
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.
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").
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.
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.
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,[5] both released in 1967.
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.
[11] 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).
[citation needed] 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.
