Freddy Cousaert

Freddy Cousaert (1937 – 19 August 1998) was a Belgian DJ, club owner and concert promoter, who was influential in developing an audience for authentic rhythm and blues music in Europe, and, in particular, for his role in the career of Marvin Gaye.

Life From the late 1950s, Cousaert ran a club in Ostend that became known for playing American R&B music which was, at the time, rarely heard in Europe. Eric Burdon, who visited the club as a teenager, said that "We were attracted by the sounds on the jukebox... It wasn't the normal top 10 stuff. He had Ray Charles and Charles Brown, blues people." Cousaert regularly visited the Q Club in London, run by Jamaican-born Count Suckle, which was frequented by many musicians on the British R&B scene. By the late 1960s, Cousaert ran the Groove discotheque in Ostend, playing mid-tempo soul and ska music that later developed into what became known in Belgium as the Popcorn style. In the 1960s and 1970s, Cousaert also worked as a public relations executive for Muhammad Ali in Europe.

Cousaert continued to organise concerts in Belgium for R&B and soul singers. He was instrumental in setting up the regular Beach Festivals in Belgium.

Death He died in 1998, aged 61, from heart failure following a cycling accident near Bruges.