SUPRO 1261AW OZARK, 1296 SILVERWOOD & 1275JB TRI TONE
£1,099 each
It’s impossible to generalise the supro sound, but if there is a unity, it might well be ‘hot single coil’
CONTACT JHS Phone 01132 865381 Web www.suprousa.com
Relaunching a heritage brand is never easy. Should the new instruments be exact clones of yesteryear or should they be brought up to date? That was the dilemma faced by Absara Audio, the ‘custodians’ of Supro – and rather like the company did with its contemporary amps, it chose to effectively embrace both scenarios with a 10-strong Americana range of guitars based on Supro’s fabled but short-lived Res-O-Glas models, and a trimmer three-strong range of updated models, the Island series. Further additions followed in the form of the Westbury and Hampton baritones, as well as the Huntington basses, and while the latter have been retained, both the Americana and Island series are gone, now called ‘Legacy models’ by Absara.
Supro’s offerings for 2019, then, are based on specific historic models. We’ve already seen the Bigsby-equipped David Bowie Limited Edition Dual Tone and the first batch of the current hardtail 400-only David Bowie 1961 Dual Tone models was unleashed on 8 January this year, Bowie’s birthday. Then we have the 2019 ‘Reissue
Collection’ we’re looking at here: a trio of original models that have been ‘modernised’ from the 50s and 60s originals: the Ozark, Tri Tone and Silverwood.
ozark
The Ozark comes from the early days of Supro and was apparently the first electric guitar owned by Jimi Hendrix. It originally appeared in 1952 as a non-cutaway slabbodied guitar with a flared three-a-side headstock, a single vinyl-covered neckplaced pickup and plastic pearloid finish. By 1954, the pickup had changed to a ‘through field’ design as used on Supro’s lap-steel guitars, and the head shape changed to the straight-sided style with its bass-side point and gold logo, which also coincided with a name change to the Supro 60 (although it changed back to Ozark by 1958). And it’s this model, with the black-painted coach lines and Ozark logo on the body, that this new version centres on. “Each Ozark guitar for 2019 is hand-numbered and comes with a signed certificate of authenticity plus a Supro Deluxe gigbag,” we’re told.
The new version certainly recalls Supro’s past. Firstly, the maple neck (glued-in not screwed like the original) joins the 40mm thick mahogany body at the 14th fret, the single-cut shape downsized compared with a Les Paul. Fittings and fixtures are sparse but ape the original with a simple black single-ply pickguard and a larger blackcoated metal plate that houses the pickup, six-saddle through-strung bridge, the volume and tone, and the output jack.
That ‘through field’ lap-steel pickup is cleverly replaced with a Lace Alumitone design, specifically the soapbar P-90sized Aluma 90 that, with a black-plated aluminium exterior, looks like it could have been designed back in the 50s.
silverwood
The original Silverwood popped up in 1960, one of a considerable number of solidbodies featuring this distinctively shaped body with a small cut-out to the upper shoulder that’s most usually associated with Valco’s Res-O-Glas models of the early 60s. The first change here, though (like the previous new Supro Island series), is that the neck joins the body at the 16th fret, not the 14th. The block inlay fingerboard and straight-sided headstock are also retained, likewise the modern version of the ‘stairstep’ tailpiece – the cut-out ‘steps’ and aluminium anchor block following the ‘reverse’ style that was used in the 50s, albeit with a straight anchor block. All in all, it’s a clever design that certainly looks like it could have come from the 60s.
The 40mm-thick slab body is mahogany (ash on some colours, see specs at the end of the review) with a single-ply binding around the top edge and sort of SG-like chamfers that are mirrored on the back. The maple neck glues into the body – the heel is comfortably rounded – with a slight back angle that gives a near perfect height for the tune-o-matic bridge. A volute under the truss rod access point means it should stand up to a fair bit of wear and tear, while the tuners ape the original ‘butterfly’ versions very well, although the three-ona-strip style does shout economy.
The Gold Foil pickups here are based on original Supro designs, specifically the so-called Clear-Tone. These are humbucking-sized but remain single coils: the neck is reverse-wound with reverse polarity, so together they’re humcancelling. The bridge unit is overwound with a measured DCR of 9.54kohms; the neck is slightly lower at 8.43k.
Controls are simple, too: a three-way lever switch that’s mounted in an originalstyle metal ring and bears a ‘Tone Switch’ logo, but simply voices either or both together, as you’d expect. The volume and tone, with Tele-style knurled knobs, sit on a separate single-ply black plastic plate, which means any maintenance or modding work is very easy.
tri tone
Like the Ozark, the Tri Tone falls into the more historically correct category, based on the Triple Tone that appeared for just one year in 1959. Essentially, it’s a three-pickup Dual Tone, with the same sloping cutaway and single horn. Like the Silverwood, it features a 16th-fret-to-the-body glued-in maple neck and swaps out the original’s wooden bridge for the same tune-o-matic bridge and stepped tailpiece. The difference here is that we have gold-plated hardware, the pickup covers brushed. Like the Ozark, what you see is what you get: just the single Jet Black finish (over a mahogany body) with no options. Body shape aside, it’s a very close cousin to the Silverwood with a near identical neck, fingerboard and headstock.
The obvious difference is the pickup complement and different circuit. At the neck and bridge we have the Ralph Kellerdesigned Vistatone single coils, a unique – and historically overlooked – pickup designed to be made cost effectively in production. At the bridge we have a more P-90-style pickup, the Super Alnico, again a single coil in a humbucker’s cover. These contemporary pickups sit in untapered humbucking rings, but like the original we have a master volume and then three independent pickup volumes. The original had a three-way lever switch, but here we get a five-way, which means as well as voicing each pickup independently, we get the ‘neck and middle’ and ‘middle and bridge’ combinations like a Strat.
Feel & sounds
So, what does a Supro sound like? It’s impossible to generalise, but if there is a unity, it might well be ‘hot single coil’. The Silverwood drops into that ballpark, its response informed by the trapeze-style tailpiece adding another subtle difference compared with a Tele or a Les Paul. Clean, it’s a little polite compared with our Les Paul Junior, but fuller and with a wider response than our Telecaster – the neck is fuller, too, and a little soft, but the overall response is wider. Add in a little dirt and a grittier, tougher character emerges with surprising clout and depth and a visceral punky attack. Hot single coil? Definitely, but wider-sounding than, say, voicing one coil of a Duncan JB. It’s not a million miles away from a low-output PAF, but does sound bigger than a typical Strat or Tele single coil, and almost suggests Gretsch or Guild minihumbuckers. Retro 60s jangle and clarity but with plenty of bite when driven.
The Tri Tone has a third pickup and five sounds that further illustrate the supro difference
The Ozark has a slightly lighter output, which initially makes you reach for the volume until you realise you’re full up already. It’s a different voice to the Silverwood and quite hi-fi-sounding – barely losing any highs as you pull back the volume – and it’s a little lighter, more Telelike than the Silverwood. Yet while this is a different voice, it still centres on quite a gnarly vocal midrange when driven that stops it sounding just bright or bland and seems to come to life with some crunch, creating a very vocal snarl. If it’s aimed at slide players it’s certainly not set up for that style. We restrung with Rotosound Roto Reds (0.011 to 0.048), raised the string height to approximately 2mm on both treble and bass sides, and tuned to open G, which not only seemed to slightly thicken the sound but allowed us to explore its slide potential, not to mention our fave Keef riffs or our inner Elmore James in open D.
With a similar feel to the Silverwood, albeit slightly heavier, the Tri Tone comes across as a little more upmarket. Its black and gold grown-up vibe translates to its sounds and, for the same money, we get a third pickup and five sounds that further illustrate the Supro difference. The Vistatone combines a classic humbucker
like output with a surprisingly thick, wide sound; the Super Alnico at the bridge gives that a kick, a little more grit, yet certainly isn’t over-bright. It’s a huge alt-rock voice. The in-between sounds have a Strat-y character, but again seem smoother and wider in response. Four volumes might be overkill, but you could easily alter that with a soldering iron. Sonically, it’s our favourite, with the caveat that not everyone can get along with that middle humbucking-sized pickup sitting under their picking hand.
Yet while the guitars have a funky leftfield sort of voice that’s appealed to numerous players over the years, the actual feel and playability is a lot more mainstream. The neck on the Silverwood and Tri Tone, for example, follows the same measurements you’ll find from numerous makers – 21mm at the 1st fret filling out to 23mm by the 12th, like Fender’s new American Performers, for example. This is despite the fact that the 43.3mm nut, the 305mm (12-inch) radius and relatively big frets (approximately 2.7mm by 1.25mm high) give a bigger, more Gibson-ish feel that’s fairly similar to the Slim Taper neck profile of the current Standard 60s and Classic. That said, the shaping is more ‘shallow D’ here with quite a full shoulder that perhaps tells our left hand it’s bigger than it actually measures. The Ozark is very similar, even though the
add in a little dirt and a grittier, tougher character emerges from the silverwood, with surprising clout
shorter neck fools us into thinking the scale length is shorter. It isn’t. Strapped on, then, that smaller feel of the Ozark is retained, but all weigh in below 3.64kg (8lbs). They feel purposeful, not overweight.
Setups are good, too, again going for a fairly mainstream 1.6mm string height on both treble and bass side, the dual-action truss rod (adjustable at the headstock) making any slight tweaks very easy. The fret tops on both the Silverwood and Tri Tone are a little rougher than we’d like and the tuning stability took a while to settle in, even after considerable string stretching. The tuners themselves have a light, not particularly positive feel, though they’re certainly smoother than those on our original 1968 Supro Stratford.
verdict
Perhaps it’s the original cheap and funky nature of brands such as Supro, but we seem to attach less value to them as opposed to ‘serious’ guitars such as our Fenders and Gibsons. Silly, really, because these contemporary models are every bit as good as a raft of quality Asian-built instruments, not least the higher end of Yamaha’s Revstar range, PRS SEs, Ibanez or the new Shergolds – and they’re not very far at all behind Fender’s USA-made start-ups, or Gibson’s for that matter.
While the guitars have a funky leftfield voice, the actual feel and playability is a lot more mainstream
The Ozark is more niche, but it’s a pretty good taste of why many players have championed supro
Yet all three models here hardly shout value, do they? The Silverwood at least comes in four colours, though with no gigbag, while the more limited singlecolour Ozark – ours is numbered 29 of 200 – does come with a gigbag but remains a single-pickup guitar. Then the Tri Tone, while still having the single-colour spec of the Ozark, at least has three pickups and five sounds – it’s the most versatile of the bunch and we’d argue the most useful, too. Quite how a single-pickup guitar can cost the same as a three-pickup guitar with gold-plating is beyond us.
The Ozark, clearly, is more niche, but outside of tracking down an original it’s a pretty good taste of why many players have championed Supro (and other Valco brands) over the years, especially for slide. The Silverwood should have more general appeal: it’s a very tidy guitar that might be based on a model from the 60s but actually seems remarkably contemporary. The Tri Tone is all that and more in terms of sounds and its more historic dress.
We might question the one-price-fits-all value, but for the right style, all three offer a very viable, different voice for those who are a little bored of the same narrow styles and sounds plumbed by so many brands.