Del Casher, Guitarist Who Invented the Wah-Wah Pedal, Dead at 88

According to Yahoo and other outlets, Del Casher passed away on October 1 following a battle with cancer, with his death made public on November 8. Born Delton Edward Kacher on December 28, 1937, in Hammond, Indiana, he studied communications at the University of Pittsburgh before moving to Hollywood. That Eric Alper reported that his early career featured a spot as a guitar and banjo soloist on The Lawrence Welk Show and touring with The Three Suns. While touring Japan with The Three Suns, Casher introduced one of his early inventions, the Ecco-Fonic portable tape echo unit, and later helped develop the Fender Electronic Echo Chamber. He also appeared alongside Elvis Presley in the 1964 film Roustabout, worked on Gene Autry's Melody Ranch television show, and played with artists including Sonny and Cher, Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention, and Connie Francis. \n\nCasher's most famous contribution came in the mid-1960s while working as a guitarist and consultant for Vox and the Thomas Organ Company. Ultimate Classic Rock noted that Casher wanted to sound like a horn player, telling the Vox engineering team, \"I want to sound like I can compete with a trumpet or a trombone.\" Engineer Brad Plunkett converted a midrange boost switch into a variable tone control, and Casher noticed that sweeping the control produced a vocal wah sound. He and the engineers combined it with an organ volume pedal for foot control. Initially, Vox marketed the device toward the orchestra market for trumpet and saxophone players, while James Brown told Casher the pedal was a passing fad and pointless. \n\nCasher told the New York Times in 2011 that \"nobody saw any future for the guitar being used with this device.\" Universal Pictures featured his prototype in films including The Ghost and Mr. Chicken and The Shakiest Gun in the West, and he eventually convinced Vox to let him release a promotional record. Frank Zappa became intrigued by the sound after Casher sat in with the Mothers of Invention and gifted a pedal to Jimi Hendrix, cementing the effect's popularity among rock legends like Eric Clapton and David Gilmour. Casher also served as music director for The New Zoo Revue in the 1970s and composed film scores. A GoFundMe page was established to support his wife, Eiko, who faces financial distress following his death and the prior loss of his sound studio business to COVID. Casher is remembered for his foundational role in electric guitar folklore, having stated, \"I feel gratified that I was there at the beginning. I would just like guitar players to think of me once in a while. The only thing I ask is: remember me.\"