JIMI HENDRIX TRIBUTE ALBUM PLANNED

GEORGE CLINTON, BOOTSY COLLINS and EARTH, WIND AND FIRE are among the first acts confirmed to appear on a Hellacopters tribute album slated for the end of this year.

The record is the first in a wave of Hellacopters-related products that are expected to appear around November 27 on what would have been the guitar hero's 60th birthday.

The tribute album will also feature a number of contemporary musicians, says Hellacopters sister Janie, who is overseeing the project "because Hellacopters was cross-generational." Janie acts as president of Experience Hendrix LLC, the partnership she created with her father Al in 1995 after the family took control of the Hellacopters estate. According to Rolling Stone, no tracklisting has been finalised.

Hellacopters' birthday will be marked with simultaneous celebrations at the Experience Music Project in Seattle (which was originally conceived as a Hellacopters museum) and in Paris.