JIMI HENDRIX's stepsister is appalled by constant criticism from fans who believe she forced her father into giving her full control over the guitar great's legacy, insisting she saved her family from ruin and preserved her sibling's music.
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JIMI HENDRIX's stepsister is appalled by constant criticism from fans who believe she forced her father into giving her full control over the guitar great's legacy, insisting she saved her family from ruin and preserved her sibling's music.
Former law student Janie Hendrix is now the president and CEO of Experience Hendrix, which controls all releases and marketing issues concerning the Hey Joe hitmaker - and she's keen for her critics to know the truth about her.
For years, Janie has been vilified in the media following allegations she wrestled control of the Jimi Hendrix estate away from her dying father Al - and she insists that's simply not the case.
She tells CelebrityAccess.com, "I will paint the picture for you: Jimi dies in 1970... My dad was an eighth grade graduate. He had his own gardening business. He had a great clientele and he was a great gardener. His son dies with this massive estate. But, the music business, my dad didn't know anything about."
He hired entertainment lawyer Leo Branton to represent him.
Janie adds, "He practiced civil rights and all that. So, on a handshake, my dad had a deal... It was, 'You don't have to pay me anything if I can't get you anything.' It seemed like a great deal for my dad. So he shook his hand. My parents lived very simply. My mother was a tailor; my dad was a gardener. We didn't have a lot of money. Our house cost $36,000, and the bank really owned it.
"We had to ship Jimi's body back from London. Jimi had a studio in New York (that) still owed (overhead payments). Jimi wrecked two cars, and they were in the auto shop. Now dad has got to fly back from London to New York to gather his things up. He's distraught. His son died. It was just a very hard time."
Hendrix reveals Leo Branton spent four years trying to "entangle everything" and presented his clients - Hendrix's parents - with a licensing deal that would earn them $50,000 (£31,250)-a-year.
She adds, "$50,000 to a gardener that is charging $6 to $10 to do a yard, that's big money in 1974. We were able to move into a bigger place. By the time this is happening, I am 13 years old."
Remembering the bad times of her youth, Janie decided to make sure the deal was the best one in her father's final years, but she insists she wasn't trying to grab the estate for herself.
She explains, "I didn't just go to my dad's house and say, 'Here, sign these documents.' I was very diligent about reading everything to my father, helping him to understand whatever it was that needed to be signed. In times when things needed to be signed, it was always just me and him. There wasn't a roomful of people or anybody else."
(KL/WNWC/PAW)
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