Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933), the thirtieth President of the United States, appears in the Pristine catalogue not as a musician but as a recorded voice from the dawn of electrical recording.

His inclusion in 1925: Landmarks from the Dawn of Electrical Recording reflects the breadth of early microphone history. Electrical recording changed not only music, but the preservation of speech, ceremony and public authority.

The value of this page is therefore documentary rather than artistic. Coolidge’s recorded presence helps mark the moment when public life began to acquire a new electrical afterlife.

He is an unusual artist-index inhabitant, but not an accidental one. Sometimes the gramophone catches not a performer, but a presidency speaking into the wire.