Jimi Hendrix and Janie Hendrix | Photo by Getty Images
Hey Janie, where you goin’ with those guitars of mine? A former bandmate of Jimi Hendrix is suing the “Hey Joe” singer’s sister Janie Hendrix over two guitars displayed in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
TaharQa and his late twin brother Tunde Ra Aleem collaborated with Hendrix in a side project called “The Ghetto Fighters” in the late 1960s. TaharQa, 70, of Brooklyn, says the rock icon gave them two unique guitars — the Acoustic Black Widow and the Mosrite Joe Maphis Doubleneck — “well before” his death in September 1970.
Then in 1995, the brothers licensed the guitars to Janie for $30,000, intending them for public display, TaharQa’s attorney Natraj Bhushan said.
At the time, the twins were also in talks with Christie’s to auction off one of the axes for a starting bid of $200,000, according to a copy of a letter obtained by The Post. The letter to the auction house says the Aleem brothers are the “exclusive owners” of the two guitars.
Bhushan said his client eventually decided he’d rather license the instruments to the Hendrix estate than sell one to a private collector.
Janie promised to attribute the credit and title to the Aleem brothers and to eventually return the guitars, which are worth an estimated $2 million, according to papers filed in Manhattan Supreme Court Tuesday.
A plaque for the Black Widow at the R&R Hall of Fame in Cleveland says Hendrix gave the instrument to the Aleem brothers, “who served as backup singers on the album ‘The Cry of Love,’ which was released after Hendrix’s death.”
The plaque also says that Hendrix “played this guitar on the song ‘Mojo Man,’ which was never released.”
A guitar publication also ran an article in 1995 about the instruments, which Hendrix purchased from Manny’s Music in New York City. He played the cream-colored doubleneck in a 1967 recording of “Spanish Castle Magic,” and gave the guitars to the Aleems a year or two later, according to the article.
The suit says Janie has refused to give the guitars back.
The Black Widow is the subject of another ownership dispute in Arizona.
In an affidavit in the pending Arizona suit, Janie says the Black Widow is “one of the few remaining guitars that Jimi Hendrix played when he performed.”
Reps for the estate and Janie Hendrix did not return messages for comment.
By Julia Marsh
http://nypost.com/2016/11/15/jimi-hendrixs-sister-to-be-sued-by-ex-bandmate-over-iconic-guitars/