Rock and Chablis

Hugh Phillmore is a man who can make the impossible happen for those who can afford to pay for it. You want Stevie Wonder to sing at your company party? Is that with or without his rhythm section? Whitney Houston at a birthday bash in southern France? No problem. So you're after a band to get wedding guests grooving? Would Earth, Wind and Fire fit the bill?

Kylie Minogue, Bryan Ferry, the Corrs, Elton John it seems that there is no star that Hugh Phillimore is unable to bring to the party.

Hugh's company, Sound Advice, is the ultimate performer when it comes to delivering the biggest names in entertainment to both private and corporate events, just so long as you are ready to part with anything between £12,000, which would get you Paul Young, and £750,000 to sign up Rod Stewart.

It seems there is no shortage of banks and multinationals only too ready to put on such treats for their employees. Even the stars themselves, such as the recently turned 60 David Gilmour, of Pink Floyd, call Phil to ensure parties swing for guests who have done and seen everything and everyone.

But from his home in the tiny village of Short Hampton, near Charlbury, he has been busily turning his own extremely costly musical dream into a reality.

For not content with putting on the ultimate private gigs, Hugh has always harboured a craving to organise something altogether bigger and riskier: in fact, a musical festival in the heart of the English countryside, family-friendly and fun, featuring big names and his favourite artists, to satisfy a wide range of musical tastes.

More than that, it would be a festival that would earn its place on the list of 'must see' English summer festivals, as relaxed as Cropredy, as traditional as Cambridge, and as eclectic as the Reading Festival.

When he moved into his new home on the Cornbury Estate ten years ago he found on his doorstep exactly what he had been looking for: a site that fitted the bill in every respect. And in 2004 the Cornbury Oxford Festival was born.

Poshstock, as it has come to be known, set in the rolling countryside of West Oxfordshire, has set new standards in comfort and facilities for the festival-goer, so used to squalor, muddy fields, filthy toilets, endless queues and three-figure ticket prices.

The sponsorship last year of Waitrose, which supplied food to hungry music fans, only added to its image as a civilised affair for those not averse to a good Chablis with their rock 'n' roll. Glastonbury it ain't, but, thanks to Hugh's impeccable musical tastes, the acts are more interesting than most summer picnic extravaganzas. Last year, Cornbury featured a rare UK appearance by the great Joe Cocker a Woodstock veteran in blistering form with Elvis Costello headlining on the Sunday.

Yet, sadly, none of this has been enough to make Cornbury a money-making venture. Organising a festival in his own backyard may be a dream for the music-mad Hugh, but for his bank manager, the event is more like a nightmare, costing more than £600,000 to stage, with at least 9,000 ticket sales required just to break even. The fact that it is going ahead at all on July 8 and 9 year can be put down to this 46-year-old businessman's huge reservoir of determination and taste for gallows humour.

"You know this was meant to be my pension," he observed wryly, as we left the peacocks behind in the courtyard of Cornbury House to embark on a tour of the festival site.

"Every year all the financial people sit down together and gang up on me, telling me to come to my senses. I tell them that I've just got to go for it. For me, it's something of a crash-and-burn mission. But it's got to work."

His response to calls for caution is usually to announce that he wants an extra stage or two in his quest to widen the festival's appeal.

Driving past the Old Stables building, which in its time has served as a dressing room for artists from Debbie Harry to the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, to suddenly be presented with vastness of the estate, it is easy to see why Hugh has almost come to see Cornbury as his destiny.

It seems history itself is on his side. For it turns out that the first Cornbury Festival was held in 1796, although originally more of a picnic than a festival, with distinctly unrock 'n' roll founders. For it was organised by three Wesleyan Methodists, anxious to provide local workers with an alternative to the rowdiness of the annual Witney Feast.

The chosen sites for these picnics was Newell (Newhill) Plain on the edge of the estate, then owned by Lord Churchill, and known as Blandford Park. Gradually the picnics in the park developed into a more traditional fair, attracting bigger crowds, along with a reputation for pickpockets and fighting, with the site conveniently outside the jurisdiction of parish constables. So the roots of Poshstock turn out to be in one of the most riotous annual events to be staged in Oxfordshire.

When the Parliamentary Act of Disafforestation in 1853 resulted in Newell Plain being transferred into the ownership of Lord Churchill, he quickly took the opportunity to rid himself of an event that had become a nuisance.

Cornbury Park is now the private home of Lord Rotherwick. To reintroduce the festival after 150 years first meant persuading him that allowing his estate to be swamped by Blondie and Hot House Flowers fans was not such a bad idea. His lordship quickly warmed to the idea. When your next-door neighbours happen to be the Marlboroughs of Blenheim, it requires something special to make a bit of a summer stir.

Then, of course, there was the undoubted charm and persuasive powers of Hugh, an Old Etonian as at ease in the company of Lord Rotherwick as he is in Noel Gallagher's. Even as a schoolboy he had little difficulty in getting the likes of Humphrey Lyttelton and George Melly to perform for him in his first stab at organising gigs.

When he left school, with his friends acquiring 'proper jobs' as barristers and bankers, Hugh became a a talent scout for a record company. He started his own company, Sound Advice, in 1981, after his imagination had been stirred by stories of the Rolling Stones playing at Magdalen College in Oxford and the Dudley Moore Trio playing 21st birthday parties.

"I had been to a few parties where fat men in frilly shirts were murdering every song you ever loved," he recalled. "And I thought 'you could have Sade or Deacon Blue playing here'."

It's a job that has brought endless excitement, leaving him with a contacts book to impress Harvey Goldsmith and a fund of hilarious anecdotes and gems of gossip that would keep libel lawyers busy for years, if just a fraction of them found their way into print.

He's worked with Sinatra ( "No bother, no excessive demands, just a bottle of Jack Daniels and someone to drink with") and Rod Stewart ( "Just don't get me started on him."). He has ripped into Oasis for vandalising the hospitality tent at a Belgium festival, only to have to apologise on discovering Manchester's finest were innocent ( "Don't worry, we always get blamed for everything," Noel assured him.) Far more excruciating was having to apologise to Stevie Wonder, who was appearing at one of his corporate events in London, on what Hugh now considers to be the worst night of is life. A premature introduction to the stage, followed by a long wait as frantic efforts were made to find the Motown legend in a toilet, resulted in the blind superstar arriving at his keyboard to the sound of slow handclapping. Hugh will also tell of disgraceful scenes involving wealthy businessmen disappointed to find Kylie Minogue performing in one of her less skimpy outfits.

"It is one of the problems with corporate work," said Hugh. "Nobody has paid for a ticket and if you do not pay for something, you don't appreciate it."

There will certainly be plenty to appreciate for the paying custom at this year's festival. Rock legend is a much misused title, but it can certainly be applied to the former Led Zeppelin front man Robert Plant, who will be headlining on Saturday night in what is the singer's only British date on his European tour. The Waterboys and Deacon Blue will also play on the first night with the Pretenders and Texas to follow on Sunday.

He is also delighted to have linked up with Tim Healey to incorporate an Oxford Folk Festival stage, where the likes of Kate Rusby, Spiers and Boden and Martin Simpson will be performing. And perhaps stung by an unfair "dad rock" label, the third Cornbury festival is being given a new dimension by the addition of a Truck stage, which will bring bright new young bands to Cornbury, along with the spirit that makes Truck Festivals in Steventon annual sell-outs.

But still the man whose business is to throw the best parties in town knows the ultimate hangover could yet await. Ticket sales went on sale slightly later than planned, with problems finalising the line up Ray Davies, of the Kinks, first added to the bill and then taken off it in the time it takes to sing You Really Got Me.

"The theory is that you should break even by year four and start to make a small profit by year five," he told me. "If you're lucky, you are back to zero by year eight or nine."

The festival has always managed to involve local singers and musicians, with school bands from Bloxham and Radley having previously taken to the stage.

The 2006 event has also been boosted by news that the 50th anniversay party of the Duke of Edinburgh Awards has moved to the festival.

Ticket sales are happily well up on last year and the seriously superstitious Hugh, despite being a self-confessed "doom-and-gloom merchant", is seeing reasons for optimism.

His disappointment with the less than capacity crowd who witnessed Joe Cocker's brilliant performance is quickly glossed over. Instead he dwells on a bumpy post-gig car journey back to the singer's hotel, which ended with a bear hug from great man who professed himself privileged to have taken part.

He shakes his head at the memory. Somehow you suspect that moment alone may have meant as much to him as the festival's ticket sales. Worrying for his accountants maybe, but the clearest indication of why we must dearly hope this year's Cornbury is not the last.

For tickets call 0870 1181636 or visit www.cornburyfestival.com