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Blind Lemon Pledge
Joke name for a bluesman, a portmanteau of the name of real bluesman Lemon Henry "Blind Lemon" Jefferson (1893-1929), and Lemon Pledge, a furniture polish made by S. C. Johnson & Son, and introduced in 1958.
The name has been used by multiple sources at different times; the earliest use in print appears to be in the "Jazz" column of Michael Cuscuna, appearing in the [ https://worldradiohistory.com/hd2/IDX-Business/Music/Archive-Record-World-IDX/IDX/70s/73/RW-1973-05-05-OCR-Page-0027.pdf May 5, 1973] issue of Record World magazine:
The DUJ label, run by Bones Monroe Constantine, is expanding with the signing of veteran saxophonist Zoot Finster's group with Miles Cosnat, the blues duo of Blind Orange Julius and Blind Lemon Pledge and the English rock band Stiggy Topes & the Turds. A reissue "Buddy Bolden's Greatest Hits" is also in the works. Constantine is working on Finster's new album, which will include strings and brass in the DUJ tradition. Finster will debut as a producer for the label working with The New Thing Quintet. Constantine said that he is bullish on sacchrine [sic] black music and expects his operation to expand very quickly.
Comedian Martin Mull used the name in his stage shows when performing the song "Ukulele Blues," but the name did not make it onto the version used on his 1973 album Martin Mull And His Fabulous Furniture In Your Living Room.
https://archive.org/details/sim_circus-raves_1974-08_1_6/page/40/mode/2up?q=%22Blind+lemon+pledge%22
1990-1991, used as the performing name of the bassist of local Seattle band Stagnant Water.
https://archive.org/details/factsheet_five_35/page/n61/mode/2up?q=%22Blind+lemon+pledge%22
Circa 1991 used in a Kudzu comic strip: https://www.google.com/books/edition/In_Your_Face/oyFQAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=Blind%20lemon%20pledge
1991
Novelist Clyde Edgerton used the monicker performing at the
2001 novel Red Hook by Gabriel Cohen
Used in the 2009 novel Down in the Flood by Kenneth Abel:
Danny climbed out, stood there for a moment listening. He could hear singing. Ain't I goin down to New Orleans, an old man's voice growled. Ain't I gonna see my baby? It sounded like something you'd hear on a scratchy old record, some guy they found in a bus station slapping his guitar when he couldn't find the chords. The guy's name would be Tupelo Slim or Blind Lemon Pledge, and white men from the Upper West Side of Manhattan with law degrees and cardiology practices would argue at dinner parties about whether he did his time at Angola or Parchman, while their expensive wives stood gazing down into their wineglasses.
