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Wednesday, April 30, 2008

A video said to show Jimi Hendrix having sex with two women has been released for sale on the internet.

The 11 minutes of footage of a man resembling Hendrix cavorting with two unidentified brunettes in a dimly lit bedroom is packaged in a 45-minute DVD distributed by Los Angeles adult film studio Vivid.

Vivid - which also distributed the Pamela Anderson-Tommy Lee sex tape - said in a press release that its Hendrix footage was shot about 40 years ago in a hotel room and was unearthed by a rock and roll memorabilia collector.

Hendrix - considered one the greatest rock guitarists of all time with such hits as Hey Joe, Purple Haze and Foxy Lady - died in 1970 at age 27.

The film's authenticity has immediately been challenged by some.

The musician's long-time girlfriend, Kathy Etchingham, told the New York Times after viewing still photos taken from the footage: "It is not him."

"His face is too broad and nose and nostrils too wide for Jimi," she was quoted as telling the Times via email.

Charles R Cross, author of the noted Hendrix biography Room Full of Mirrors, has also disputed the identity of the man in the tape.

"It doesn't add up to Jimi," Gross told the Times, saying he had encountered the film during his book research and dismissed it as a fake.

But Vivid said it consulted with several experts to authenticate the footage, including Pamela Des Barres, author of the book I'm With The Band: Confessions Of A Groupie, and Cynthia Albritton - better known as Cynthia Plaster Caster - famed for making plaster moulds of celebrities' genitals, including those of Hendrix.

Both women appear on the DVD offering their commentary.

"They both immediately had the same reaction: 'I can't believe it, it's Jimi Hendrix'," Mr Hirsch quoted the two women as saying when they first viewed the footage.

Vivid bought the tape from an individual distributor, Howie Klein. Mr Klein approached Vivid after purchasing it from the collector who found it.

Mr Hirsch told Reuters that private investigators hired by Vivid's lawyers later tracked down the man who claimed to have shot the footage in eight millimetre colour film. Vivid then struck a deal with him for rights to commercially distribute it.

"That's why we believe, in fact, that we own the copyright," he said.

Bob Merlis, spokesman for Experience Hendrix - the Seattle company owned by the musician's relatives that controls rights to his music - said: "We're in no position to verify [the tape's authenticity]."

He declined further comment, saying only that rights to Hendrix's likeness remain an unsettled legal issue.

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