FROM his office in Los Angeles to his studio in a Cheshire village, Chris Hewitt truly is an international man of music.
It is in Wincham that the music junkie runs the UK operation of his successful Ozit Morpheus label and his American base is on Sunset Boulevard.
The 53-year-old, who counted the late John Peel as a friend, has worked with acts including Captain Beefheart, Thin Lizzy, The Fall and Tractor.
His love for music started when he was a 16-year-old schoolboy at Hulme Grammar School in Oldham. "One lunchtime my friend said to me let's climb over the school railings and go into the town centre and we went to this amazing record stall on the market run by this old lady with no teeth called Ma Dobbs," he said.
"We had a record player in the fifth form common room so I started buying LPs to play at school and I began reading the music papers. I pretty much did that instead of going into lessons."
His modest detached property near Northwich is an unlikely headquarters for an international record company.
But, with a recording studio in the garden and a video editing suite in the spare bedroom, this small-scale company has all the equipment found in any London studio and Chris can boast of working with some big names in the music industry to prove it. After being asked to leave' school he attended Rochdale College, where he got involved with promoting bands and organising concerts for students.
This is where Chris first met the legendary John Peel.
"I got asked to leave because I was too much of a rebel and was more interested in music than in studying," he said.
"I then got involved with the student union and started promoting bands. This is when I met Tractor and John Peel.
"I was involved with him on and off through the years and our paths crossed quite a lot."
Until Peel's death in 2004, almost every album released on Chris' record label was featured regularly on John Peel's radio show.
In 1972 Chris was asked to sell tickets to the Bickershaw Festival in Wigan - a three-day event for 40,000 fans featuring rockers The Kinks and folk singer Donovan.
Chris has recently released a DVD of the festival, which has got rave reviews from various music magazines including Classic Rock and Record Collector.
Television presenter Jeremy Beadle, who promoted the festival at the time, praised Chris for releasing the DVD.
He said: "Congratulations. It's the job of historians like yourself to put things in context and explain their worth from a contemporary and present viewpoint. You have succeeded brilliantly. Like most people, I've forgotten just how awful and just how fantastic Bickershaw was."
Chris is no stranger to celebrity and recalls some fond memories of his meetings with some world-class musicians.
"I once rescued Lemmy from Motorhead who had broken down at Knutsford services. The van had run out of petrol and he had no money so I had to lend him some.
"That's why he's called Lemmy, because he always used to ask people to lemmy a fiver'," said Chris.
Chris went on to launch his own festival, Deeply Vale, in 1976.
He added: "The first year it started off with 300 people and by 1978 there were 20,000. It was a seven-day festival with 51 bands and was pretty much non-stop.
"Even now I get emails every day asking if it's going to happen again this year."
After running a series of record shops and studios over the years he finally set up the Northwich-based record label from his home in 1991.
Along with his sound engineer son Tom, they record artists and manufacture CDs, DVDs and more recently vinyls at their Wincham home.
He added: "Vinyl LPs are coming back and becoming more popular again, it's because they sound better and the hi-fi enthusiasts and collectors like them, even shops are starting to open vinyl sections again."
Despite his years in the music industry Chris still cannot play an instrument or sing a note.
"I've always been on the other side of the mixing desk," he said.
