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Hendrix gear under the gavel
10/08/2004 22:17 - (SA)
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| Estonian model Mari-Liis Ivalo wears a jacket worn by the late Jimi Hendrix around 1967-69 whilst holding Hendrix's vintage 1965-69 Fender Stratocaster guitar. (Richard Lewis, AP) |
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London - A huge treasure trove of memorabilia connected to Jimi Hendrix, including 50 hours of previously unreleased music by the late US guitarist, is to be sold at auction, organisers announced on Tuesday.
A series of five sales covering more than 20 000 items is expected to raise up to £15m, British auction house Cooper Owen said.
The majority of the items up for sale were collected by Bob Terry, an obsessive fan of the late star who started buying Hendrix-related items at the age of 17 and gradually acquired the world's biggest such collection.
Within the collection - being sold by another fan who purchased it from Terry - is 300 hours of video and film footage of Hendrix in the recording studio, in concert and elsewhere, more than half of which has never been seen before.
There is also about 50 hours of unreleased music, including many studio tapes which Hendrix brought home to listen to or work on.
Other lots from different collections include a white Fender Stratocaster guitar sold by Hendrix's former road manager, Bob Levine, which is expected to fetch £250 000.
The guitarists's own poems, records, posters and concert tickets will also go under the hammer.
"There is nothing about this collection that is ordinary. It's not just unique, it's mind-blowingly unique," said auctioneer Ted Owen, who has spent a year sorting through the artefacts.
Hendrix's incendiary and highly innovative guitar playing, coupled with a gift for songwriting and a flamboyant performing style, brought him swift fame during a brief career with his band, "The Jimi Hendrix Experience".
He died in 1970, aged 27, after releasing just four full albums, but proved an even more influential - and successful - artist in the decades to come.
Hendrix's estate, over which relatives of the guitarist began fighting a bitter court battle earlier this year, is said to be worth around $100m.
Much of the collection is going on show next month in London, where Hendrix was based for much of his career, ahead of the auctions, the dates of which have yet to be set.
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