1975 Gibson Midnight Special
Larry Harris was a magician. There is no other reason I can think of that would allow him to land KISS, who at the time was a relatively unknown band, a deal with Gibson. "One of my projects was getting Gibson Guitars to sign KISS as an official sponsor. I'd successfully signed the band to a contract that provided them with free guitars in exchange for featuring the Gibson logo on all their albums and promising to use Gibson instruments exclusively on stage." (And Party Every Day, p. 100) When the deal was actually inked we don't know but Paul got his hand on a Gibson Midnight Special by December of 1974 and Gene turns up with a Gibson Grabber around the same time so it was evidently finalized some time that fall. The classic "KISS plays..." text first appears on Dressed to Kill upon its release in March of 1975.
The Midnight Special was the "bastard sibling" of the heavily advertised L6-S guitars designed by Bill Lawrence. I say "bastard" because it was never featured in the Gibson catalog, it was never advertised and, most surprisingly, it wasn't even listed in the price list. It was, by any measure, a "secret" guitar. Design-wise the Midnight Special was a budget copy of its "older brothers", the two model L6-S. It had a maple body and a maple neck with a maple fretboard; it used had the same Schaller wide-travel tune-o-matic (affectionally known as the Harmonica bridge) with through-body stringing; and it even had the same Bill Lawrence “super” humbuckers. Where the Midnight Special irrevocably differed from the L6-S was that it had a bolt-on neck, a move designed by Gibson to produce an affordable instrument that could compete, but on their terms, with the lower-end Fender models.
The Midnight Special was available in four different finishes and the one Paul played was just called white. But it was, as Paul remembers, slightly more extravagant: "Gibson was giving me these guitars, and they were called Midnight Specials, they had this weird white sparkle metal-flake finish and a bolt-on neck. They were free and sounded pretty good." (Metal Edge presents KISS Alive 1996) According to Gibson shipping records there were no white Midnight Specials shipped in 1974 but Paul obviously got his hands on some. For KISS fans who have seen countless photos of Paul playing these guitars it might come as a surprise that Gibson only shipped a sum total of 161 white finish Midnight Specials 1975-77.
And now things get a little hard to decipher. Gene gets his Grabber in late November but the first (possible) sighting of the Midnight Special is on December 12, 1974, in Davenport, Iowa. It is definitely part of the rotation in Detroit, Michigan on December 20, 1974 but then Paul had acquired his beloved Firebird I so the Midnight Special had been temporarily placed on backup duty.
The last week of 1974 Paul seems to have gravitated more towards the Midnight Special and this carried over into the first few weeks of 1975.
For the first couple of months of 1975 Paul continued relying on the Midnight Special as seen in the photos below. The band played relatively few shows January-March and although the Firebird I did make some appearances—most notably at Winterland on January 30—it looks as if Paul did his best to honor the Gibson deal. But we should also note that the band were in the studio on and off for these three months, first in Larrabee Sound in later January and then in Electric Lady a few weeks in February. Chances are that the Firebird was held back for use in the studio.
The best indication that the Firebird I was needed elsewhere are the photos from St. Louis below. These two shows on February 20 and 21 were right in the middle of recording and mixing Dressed To Kill. (They were in the studio on February 19 recording "I Wanna Rock n Roll" and then returned to Electric Lady for the in-studio photo shoot with Bob Gruen on February 24. They then spent another three days on mixing.) And the two photos from St. Louis below are the only ones I've seen where Paul actually had two Midnight Specials on stage.
After the high-profile home-coming show at the Beacon and the TV filming for NBC, the Gibson Firebird I returned and the Midnight Special was more or less relegated to backup duties. It was around for quite some time as evidenced by the photos below and it was used for a couple of photos shoots, no doubt as part of the deal they had with Gibson, but by June it had been placed on permanent backup duty.
The last verified sighting is on August 23 but it seems likely that it was still part of the rotation until the Epiphone Coronet showed up in mid-September and there is a possibility that it hung around a little longer. There is a backstage photo of Gene from September 13 in Norfolk, Virginia that shows the Midnight Special but I am unsure of the date. Dito the photos of Paul playing the Midnight Special that are supposedly from October 5, 1975, in Rochester, New York.
