Hendrix family win court fight

The family of rock legend Jimi Hendrix today won a High Court battle over control of some of his rarest recordings. They were fighting over little-known examples of Hendrix's guitar virtuosity with a group called Curtis Knight And The Squires.

Hendrix is best known for hits such as Hey Joe and Purple Haze after he came to London in 1966, forming the Jimi Hendrix Experience before his death in 1970, aged 27.

But he played with Curtis Knight both before the height of his fame and in a recording session in July 1967 owned by PPX Enterprises. The family formed Experience Hendrix LLC to own and administer music rights, apart from his work with other groups, and sued PPX over alleged breach of a 1973 agreement.

Mr Justice Buckley found in favour of EHL "to a limited extent". He granted an injunction which stops PPX exploiting Hendrix master copies and granting licences to record companies, other than the master tapes to which it was entitled.

PPX's legal bill is estimated at £400,000. However, the judge did not award damages or order PPX to "deliver up" the best tapes and criticised EHL's "indifference" in failing to act before now.