Jimi Hendrix is making his move. Forty years after his death, Hendrix is enjoying the kind of resurgence in the posthumous-rock-star derby that might rival the sales of Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson.

Recently, Hendrix’s estate released the first “new” Jimi album in decades (the often awesome, occasionally underwhelming “Valleys of Neptune,” recorded mostly in 1969) as well as remastered versions of his three landmark albums. A Hendrix “Rock Band” game is promised this year, and there’s talk of a Jimi “Anthology” a la the Beatles.

There’s also a concert tour in progress – an all-star revue of guitar heroes, including Joe Satriani, Robert Randolph, Ernie Isley and Jonny Lang, playing tunes from Hendrix’s catalog.

Isley said “Experience Hendrix” proves that the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer was well-rounded – a first-rate songwriter, imaginative interpreter and, as any rock fan knows, a pioneering guitar virtuoso.

“He brought to the electric guitar what Louis Armstrong and Miles Davis brought to the trumpet. He expanded the boundaries of the instrument,” said Isley, who is making his first foray on this tour, which did brief runs in 2007 and ’08. “He got out every sound that the instrument or amplifier could make. He was like George Washington – there might be other people to follow you, but you’ll always be the first.”

Isley knew Jimmy Hendrix (he hadn’t changed the spelling yet) firsthand. From spring of 1963 until Thanksgiving 1965, the guitarist lived in the Isley family’s New Jersey home while playing with the Isley Brothers, the R&B stars known then for “Shout” and “Twist and Shout.”

Isley, 11 at the time, remembers watching the Beatles’ debut on “The Ed Sullivan Show” with Hendrix sitting on the couch with him and his brother Marvin.

Recalled Isley: “After that, there was a meeting with the band and my brother Kelly said, ‘They’ve got two guitar players but we’ve got Jimmy.’ When he said that, Jimmy started grinning.”

Hendrix, 10 years older than Ernie, used to stay in a back room at the Isley house. Self-taught, he’d practice his electric guitar without an amplifier and listen to a 5-foot stack of blues 45s by Jimmy Reed and Muddy Waters.

Ernie, who didn’t take up guitar until age 15, remembers Hendrix practicing how to play guitar behind his back and between his legs – moves that he’d later break out with the Isleys onstage.

Hendrix liked to watch TV, too – “Bonanza,” “Wild Kingdom” and cartoons.

“He got along well with kids,” Isley said. “He was polite. Great sense of humor. I can talk about Jimmy Hendrix and Pez candy, or Jimmy Hendrix and Saturday-morning cartoons with me and Marvin.”

One of the boys might ask, “Can you play the ‘Beanie and Cecil’ song?,” and Hendrix would take out his guitar and play it. “Didn’t hit a wrong note. That was fascinating as a kid.”

After leaving for England with his white Stratocaster guitar (purchased by the Isley Brothers) and his destiny as Jimi Hendrix, he visited the Isleys in 1967 en route to the Monterey Pop Festival in California.

“He looked different,” Isley recalled. “He had a hat, scarf, rings on every finger, stuff around his neck. He walked down the hallway sounding like (cowboy character) Shane. ‘Man, is that Jimmy?’ ‘Yeah, he’s killin’ ’em in England!’ ”

Isley opens the “Experience Hendrix” show, backed by Stevie Ray Vaughan’s drummer, Chris Layton, and bassist Billy Cox, who befriended Hendrix in the Army and played with him in 1969 and ’70. Isley says he doesn’t try to replicate Hendrix’s work, but Satriani says that’s unavoidable.

“Some of the stuff I love so much and I just have to hear it played as close to the way Jimi had played it,” Satriani said. “Having said that, Jimi played it a million different ways. I imagine if (tour producer) John McDermott comes to me before I go on and says, ‘We have twice as much time as I thought, so have fun,’ then I can think about some more outrageous, exploratory versions of the songs and stretch it out.”

After each performer submitted a request list, McDermott decided who would play which songs – and with whom, to create special moments. Satriani gets “Third Stone From the Sun,” “Foxy Lady” and “All Along the Watchtower” backed by Living Colour, with guitarist Vernon Reid.

Satriani, 53, who started as a drummer, was profoundly affected by Hendrix’s 1970 death – a drug overdose at age 27.

“The day he died was so devastating to me,” he said, “that I remember quitting the (high-school) football team – I was a tight end – and marching home and announcing to my family that I was going to become a guitar player.”