[1] Schoepen was a versatile entertainer, entrepreneur, singer-songwriter, guitarist, comedian, actor, and professional whistler, as well as the founder and former director of the amusement park Bobbejaanland.

His career started in the late 1930s when he and his sister Liesje performed vaudeville shows in the surrounding villages, going around with the hat collecting money afterwards.

They performed impersonations, poetry, South-African songs, and country music from Calais to Amsterdam, all with plenty of room for improvisation and adventure.

Kluger was pleased to receive an unexpected, flattering letter from Major Mearker, and contracted Schoepen to go on tour in Germany for several months.

In Berlin, which was still partly in ruins, his floor shows were also attended by the American general and military governor Lucius D. Clay, who asked him for two additional performances.

Schoepen toured in at least twenty different countries, together with artists such as Josephine Baker, Caterina Valente, Gilbert Bécaud, and Toots Thielemans (who was a guitarist in his band in 1951).

He is one of the first Europeans (excluding the British) to have appeared at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, one of the most important centers of country music in the United States.

The American country singer, Tex Williams, a Western swing performer, would later release a cover of Schoepen's "Fire and Blisters" in the US (1974).

[6] In 1954 there followed a three-month European tour through Germany, Iceland, and Denmark, which concluded with a few months of performances in the Folies Bergère in Paris.

When Jacques Brel performed the opening act in the Ancienne Belgique in Brussels in January 1955, Schoepen already had the status of an international vedette in his own country.

But Schoepen, who had already been on tour almost constantly for ten years, and had contractual obligations in Europe, was increasingly looking for a place to settle down (this would become Bobbejaanland).

After the show, his local manager Jack Heath let him hear the first golden Australian hit in the US, "A Pub with No Beer" by Slim Dusty, and Schoepen decided to make a Dutch, German, and English cover of it.

[9] During the 1960s, Camillo Felgen, Heino, and James Last, among others, would catapult his evergreen "Ik heb eerbied voor jouw grijze haren" ("I Respect Your Grey Hair") into a huge European hit, which has sold more than three million copies.

In 1961, Caterina Valente also released a version of "In de schaduw van de mijn" ("In the Shadow of the [Coal] Mine") in Italy, under the title "Amice Miei", and in 1965 Richard Anthony sang a French and Spanish version "Ik heb me dikwijls afgevraagd" (Je me suis souvent demandé) into the international charts: the song reached #1 in France, April 3, 1965.

[12] During the sixties and seventies, he was a regular visitor to the United States, where he took up with actor Roy Rogers, Nudie Cohn (the fashion designer of Elvis, Johnny Cash and others), and Tex Williams, the founding father of western swing.

Doing so freed him from having to deal with music venue owners, who were asking for ever-increasing rental prices and did not always have appropriate space for his program.

An American circus stunt team came to Brussels on the occasion of the world exhibition, Expo 58; it was a private endeavor led by Casey Tibbs.

In 1962 he played the leading role in the absurd comedy, At the Drop of a Head (alias De Ordannans), together with leaders of the Flemish film scene: Ann Peterson, Yvonne Lex, Denise Deweerdt, Nand Buyl, and Tony Bell.

On 31 December 1961, Bobbejaanland was officially opened by Bobbejaan Schoepen and his wife Josée, with whom he developed the park into his life's work.

Schoepen focused his attention solely on the business aspect of the park, slowly pushing his musical career into the background.

His performances became a rarity but Bobbejaanland, which he operated with his family, developed into one of the top amusement parks in the Benelux region.

Bobbejaan Schoepen's life was not without its difficulties: he was thrown into prison twice during wartime, he lost his virtuoso whistling ability due to a surgical intervention, and in 1986 he underwent a serious heart operation.

But he continued and, in the winter of 2003, a major investment of nearly 12 million euros was made on two unique rides ("Typhoon" and "Sledge Hammer").

That year, the Flemish consumer magazine Test-Aankoop conducted a comparative survey of 13 European amusement parks.

Bobbejaanland was the most highly esteemed park in Belgium on almost every level, and in Europe it shared second place, together with Disneyland and the Parc Astérix.

"[6] Schoepen was considered to be the artistic attraction of the park; his wife Josée (the oldest of eighteen children) was a leading figure and the commercial backbone; and her sister Louise (Wies) was the solid foundation with respect to accounting and finances.

On 13 February 2007, with much media attention, Schoepen received a Lifetime Achievement Award in the Ancienne Belgique in Brussels for his successful career as a singer, musician, and for his pioneering work in Belgian music history.

In 2005, the idea was revived by Michiels (A&R) and executive producer Tom Schoepen, who would concentrate fully on the production of Bob's voice recordings.

Michiels was aware that Bobbejaan Schoepen could not just pick up where he left off and carry his show for a large audience: his top years were long past and the amusement park had inflicted too much damage on the singer.