My friend, Kevin Mott Renton, who has died aged 80, ran the idiosyncratic Renton’s Record music shop in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, from the late 1960s to the mid-80s.

The store had been passed to him by his stepfather, Arthur Renton, who had run it along traditional lines. But Kevin’s interests in jazz, world music, folk and obscure records and instruments from around the globe gave the business a new character, including having an aviary in the middle of the shop. Kevin also produced his own hand-drawn publicity leaflets and posters.

He also became interested in instruments from around the world, and made versions of them using scrap materials, which he showed off in the window. When the business closed in 1984, he switched to making a living by travelling around schools, teaching children to make instruments out of recycled items. His reputation in that field was enhanced by two appearances on the BBC’s Blue Peter, in 1988 and 1989.

Kevin was born in Maldon, Essex, to Gwendoline (nee South) and her husband, Frank Mott, who died in action during the second world war before Kevin was born. He grew up with Gwen and Arthur, whom he regarded as his father, in Leamington Spa, where Gwen ran a knitwear shop and Arthur opened Renton’s Records in 1957. His secondary education took place in Suffolk, at Framlingham college, where he founded a jazz club in the sixth form with like-minded friends.

After further study at the Birmingham School of Art in the early 60s, Kevin took over Renton’s Records in 1968. With the instruments he made he also started playing music for various dance companies, including Motionhouse, Cycles Dance Company and New Midlands Dance, touring with them around festivals, including the Edinburgh fringe.

One of his instrumental tricks was to get a water heater called the Creda Corvette, popular at the time, to come to the boil with a multinote siren at exactly the right time in a performance – no mean feat and certainly a health and safety hazard.

Kevin met his partner, Sarah Huddlestone, a decorative artist, in 1988. They married in 2016, and she moved into Kevin’s house, which she once described as a cross between a storage room at the Pitt Rivers Museum and a Harry Potter film location.

Later in life Kevin was a founder member of a local men’s music group whose members meet monthly to share their favourite tracks and artists. His own tastes ranged from John Cage to the Beach Boys.

In his last year of life, with a mystery illness diagnosed as MND only a week before he died, he was to be found reclining in his favourite armchair with a cat on his chest and a glass of red wine or a little bowl of his favourite sake, musing philosophically on his condition and not at all despondent about how life had treated him.

He is survived by Sarah and two stepchildren, James and Lucinda, from Sarah’s first marriage.