Hendrix's Green Haze

Al Hendrix, now 73, lives in a middle-class neighborhood in Seattle on a stipend from the estate that was arranged back in the early '70s by Branton. Neither he nor the estate's owners and managers have ever specified what his income is, but it is thought to be modest, especially in light of the estate's value. But Hendrix insists he's happy with his situation and says he is ''surprised and pleased'' by his son's renewed popularity.

The elder Hendrix's willingness to accept his modest payout from the estate is somewhat reminiscent of Jimi's acquiescence in his notoriously poor royalty arrangements. Industry insiders still talk about Hendrix's monumentally bad initial recording deal, which was said to have given him 1 percent of an album's price in royalties; his posthumous royalty rate is estimated to be about 16 percent — within striking distance of that of superstars like Madonna, who reportedly gets 20 percent.

The two living veterans of the Jimi Hendrix Experience, bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell, do not share at all in the new success of the music they helped create: They signed away their rights to royalties in the '70s for flat payments of $100,000 and $300,000 respectively. Had they held on to them, their shares could now be worth millions.

Redding, 47, who is near a deal for the U.S. publication of his autobiography, Are You Experienced? (published in the U.K. in 1991), says he, for one, is bitter about being shut out of the big profits.

''If I had a couple of million dollars,'' he says, ''I'd sue the estate,'' despite the fact that no one is saying exactly who the estate is. ''It's just making more millions of dollars — and it's unfortunate I don't get any of it.'' Then again, it appears, neither does anybody named Hendrix.