A handful of jokers among Lucky Millinder’s sidemen observed that Benjamin Jackson bore a striking likeness to a bull moose, and the playful tag quickly replaced his given name. Performing as Bull Moose, he placed multiple singles on the R&B charts throughout the late 1940s and early 1950s. His vocal approach alternated sharply between the smooth pop-crooner delivery heard on “I Love You, Yes I Do” and “All My Love Belongs to You” and the unrestrained exuberance he brought to the double-entendre numbers “I Want a Bowlegged Woman” and “Big Ten Inch Woman,” a contrast that record buyers embraced without hesitation.
He had studied violin as a child before switching to saxophone. Once proficient on the new instrument, he performed jazz in assorted settings until 1944, when he joined Millinder’s group simultaneously as vocalist and saxophonist. His debut 78 under his own name appeared on Syd Nathan’s newly established Queen imprint; titled “I Know Who Threw the Whiskey in the Well,” it answered a recent Millinder hit and itself became a commercial success. He named his accompanying unit the Buffalo Bearcats after repeated engagements at a Buffalo nightclub.
Further hits followed on Nathan’s King label: “I Love You, Yes I Do” in 1947; “Sneaky Pete,” “All My Love Belongs to You,” “I Want a Bowlegged Woman,” “I Can’t Go on Without You,” and two additional titles in 1948; and “Little Girl, Don’t Cry” plus “Why Don’t You Haul Off and Love Me”—the latter a reading of Wayne Raney’s country hit—in 1949. That same year he appeared on screen in the film Boarding House Blues alongside Millinder’s orchestra.
Two especially suggestive 1952 recordings, “Big Ten Inch Record” and the emphatically bawdy “Nosey Joe” (written by the youthful Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller), received little airplay yet stand as vivid examples of jump blues at its most unrestrained. Jackson remained with King until 1955. Six years afterward he returned briefly to the charts with a remake of “I Love You, Yes I Do” on 7 Arts, though steady catering work in Washington, D.C., sustained him through quieter periods. Renewed interest surfaced in 1985 when the album Moosemania! appeared in collaboration with the Pittsburgh ensemble the Flashcats; the resurgence proved short-lived, as lung cancer claimed him in 1989.
