Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself: Essays on Debut Albums. Edited by George Plasketes. Burlington, VT. Ashgate Publishing Company, 2013. 250pp (hardcover). Illustrations, Appendices, Bibliography. ISBN: 9781409441762. $104.95 Here is an anthology of music writing that issues forth from an interesting premise: editor George Plasketes treats the debut album as a genre, and collects a body of writing that examines the debuts of various performers from Buddy Holly to now, mostly of the singer-songwriter variety. The inherent conceptual challenge is that a debut album is not a genre; it is an event or action within the career of an artist. But it is not a wholly irrelevant vantage point from which to view a wide variety of artists therefrom; when I was researching little-known blues singers for inclusion in the All Music Guide to the Blues I discovered that--almost without exception--in the 78-rpm era, the first record issued by a blues artist was that artist's best-seller. I did not have the luxury then to take the time to discover the reason why this was, and have not since; I've always wondered what the answer is. While Plasketes and his contributors do not aim at answering such higher mysteries, the potential is there for revelations of other kinds under such a blanket concept, and that alone justifies the value of assembling an anthology such as this. Though Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself cuts a swath through pop, folk, hip hop, avant-garde, and country categories, the overall thrust of the book has the effect of sameness to the type of artist covered, at least for the first two thirds of the book. Choices range from artists whose debuts were their one and only statements (such as the obscure Jackson C. Frank, of whom I had never heard, and was grateful for the introduction) to those whose first albums were merely the initial event in a long salvo of similar things, namely Jandek. As with most anthologies, some essays are better than others, and the very best essay included --Ian Inglis' piece on George Harrison's All Things Must Pass--violates the theme a little, as his debut album truly was Wonderwall Music which was also, significantly the first solo album by a Beatle. To have made that determination, however, would have cost the book its finest essay. Also we find some blurring of the thematic limits in the chapter on Joan Baez' debut, 1961s Joan Baez Vol. 1. To discuss that album properly one needs recourse to Joan Baez Vol. 2, which is almost identical to its predecessor in content and style. Likewise, contributor B. Lee Cooper deals with Wilson Pickett's unsuccessful debut It's Too Late and its successful successor In the Midnight Hour by addressing both albums. Nevertheless, there are some very fine things here; the opening chapter devoted to The Chirpin' Crickets by Buddy Holly Don Cusic's essay about Roger Miller, the article about Nick Drake, and the aforementioned entries on Frank and Jandek. …