Photo of Lotte Lenya of Mack the Knife fame with Turk Murphy circa 1950s. She recorded Mack the Knife with Turk Murphy for distribution in Germany and it became a big seller there. Turk Muphy, as requested by Columbia A&R man George Avakian, did and arrangement for Louis Armstrong of the same song. Neither Louis of Turk thought the song would go anywhere so Turk took a flat fee of $300.00. Louis left shortly after the recording session for Europe and was amazed, upon his return that the tune was a smash with over one million copies sold. They did not have a copy of the score so they went to a place with a juke box to re-learn the tune.