Still, Leon questioned the intense work schedule that Jimi's handlers and manager Michael Jeffrey put him under, as well as some shady financial dealings. Leon recalls seeing Jeffrey take a suitcase of about $80,000 in cash after a gig (which is how Hendrix was often paid), yet the musician was put on a per diem of only $50 a day, and millions would go forever unaccounted for.

Leon writes frankly about his years of drug addiction, criminal enterprises and street hustling, and about learning of his brother's death while in a correctional facility. It is this lifestyle that probably contributed to his lack of attention to the increasingly very lucrative affairs of his brother's estate, handled at various times by his befuddled father (who received a measly $50,000 a year when Hendrix's music was selling in the millions), a series of lawyers, and finally a family cousin and Janie Hendrix, the daughter of Al's second wife.

Few music fans would argue that Janie's handling of Experience Hendrix LLC has been nothing short of phenomenal in the past decade. Still, when Al died in 2002 and Leon -- who had previously been a beneficiary in all previous wills -- was not listed at all in the last one, it meant that Jimi's blood brother and his children received no current or future money, and only a single gold record of Jimi's which arrived in a FedEx package.

Lawsuits went back and forth, with a court ultimately siding with Janie and the last will. Still, it was a hard blow for Leon -- who says he's been clean for many years -- to walk away with nothing. A later decision allowed him to use Jimi's image and likeness for business purposes, but he still was plainly screwed out of an ethical, if not legal, claim to the estate.

Today, Leon Hendrix fronts his own band, playing both his own music and his brother's, while also working as a visual artist. And while other Hendrix books have concentrated on his roles as musical genius, troubled soul and visionary dead far too soon, this one celebrates the sweet, shy, protective older brother -- who just happened to wear crazy clothes and set his guitar on fire.