Originally Posted by: RazboI'm not sure. Sounds like Branton might be the one benefiting right now...?
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Yes, Leo Branton made money on it. But, make no mistake, he earned it by building it from a pile of liabilities:

When his son died, Al Hendrix as sole heir was warned to expect little from the estate, which faced claims from his son's ex-girlfriends with babies, managers, the IRS and other creditors. The estate teetered on bankruptcy.

Into a business that paid Al Hendrix very well:

Branton sorted through the various claims on Jimi's estate and arranged a series of deals beginning in 1974 in which Al Hendrix received promises of money in exchange for transferring rights to his son's music and other assets to a Panamanian company. Al Hendrix came away with payments of $50,000 a year for 10 years, plus big sums that were promised for a Hendrix family trust. By 1983, the value of Jimi Hendrix's music had so grown, Branton says, that he got the $50,000 payments to Al Hendrix extended for life.

Enter Janie Hendrix-Wright and Leon Hendrix. Branton isn't threatening to kill them, bury them, cut them out or off. He's offering them a deal that would pay them $1,000,000!

And who are these people?

Janie Hendrix-Wright ... feels a close kinship to Jimi Hendrix, even though she only had three brief contacts with him, the last in 1970.

I can think of lots of people marginally related to me that I've met briefly at a few family functions over the years. These are not the type of people that deserve to be cut in on what I would want left to my wife & kids.

The family wild card is Leon Hendrix, who did time in prison for burglary and is estranged from Al and Janie. His whereabouts are unknown to the family. Ironically, it was Leon Hendrix who first raised doubts about Branton's handling of the Hendrix legacy, but his father disregarded the warnings.

Charming person, huh? An ex-con, who distrusted the guy who built the mess Hendrix left into a profitable business. Without which none of these people would have anything.

Where did brother Leon weigh in on the situation?

Nonetheless, Leon accepted Branton's offer. Al Hendrix and his daughter did not.

Oh. He didn't trust greedy Branton. But took his money anyway. :rolleyes:
[quote=Razbo]
Ha! The big Moving Truck is going to put this in the Metaphysical Quandry forum :D

:p Well, the point remains that the cut off date is a reasonable one, due to the fact that it limits the amount of time to at least people that the author would have known, loved, actually valued & explicitly intended to be an heir.

As opposed to the peanut-gallery that always shows up when they smell other people's productive efforts turning into money. :rolleyes:

In other news, congrats on 1,000 posts!