Music: New Pop Records, may 7, 1951

General MacArthur's "Old soldiers never die" lifted the tape on the wildest scramble the U.S. recording business has seen in years. Winner in the first lap was Columbia, which enlisted Gene Autry to put the old song on wax.

Fattened out with an Autry-devised tribute to Mac ("The world will ne'er forget him, to him we say well done"), the record was cut the day after MacArthur's speech before Congress. Within 24 hours it was in the hands of California disc jockeys and shortly thereafter in record shops, selling an estimated 25,000 copies a day. Hot on Columbia's heels, seven other...

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