The Longest Cocktail Party: An Insider's Diary of the Beatles, Their Million-dollar Apple Empire and Its Wild Rise and Fall - Softcover

Dilello, Richard

3.87

389 ratings by Goodreads

9781841956022: The Longest Cocktail Party: An Insider's Diary of the Beatles, Their Million-dollar Apple Empire and Its Wild Rise and Fall

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1841956023 ISBN 13: 9781841956022

Publisher: Canongate Books, 2005

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When American teenager, Richard DiLello, wandered into the Beatles' Apple building in 1968, he was immediately appointed 'house hippie'; he began making tea, rolling joints and listening to dozens of demo tapes. By the time Apple crumbled a few years later he was director of public relations.

Along the way he noted many of the stoned conversations he heard and the insane bits of business he witnessed: one-man bands auditioning in the reception, Hell's Angels taking over Savile Row and The Beatles playing on the roof. Full of period detail, The Longest Cocktail Party is fast-paced, witty and immensely poignant about the demise of the Fab Four and the death of the '60s dream.

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Review:

"It's a fast-paced, witty read that even Noel Gallagher raved about." (Sunday Express)

"incisive, evocative and hilariously funny. The Beatles are shadowy figures, but this is a fine view of rock's most inspired folly." (Mojo)

"Marvellous. If you want to know what Apple was like, this is the book." (Alastair Taylor, Former General Manager, Apple)

From the Back Cover:

"Marvellous. If you want to know what Apple was like, this is the book."
Alastair Taylor, former General Manager, Apple

Richard DiLello worked at the London headquarters of Apple, The Beatles' erratic enterprise in business and music, from the summer of 1968 until August 1970, advancing from the undefined position of 'House Hippie' to a brief and final role as Director of Public Relations. The Longest Cocktail Party is his candid account of the dramatic chaos within Apple, from the Hell's Angels who took up residence in the building to The Beatles' final concert on the roof of 3 Savile Row, and the group's slow and painful dissolution.

First published in 1972 and now considered a classic, The Longest Cocktail Party is an immensely poignant portrait of the demise of The Beatles, a social document of pop culture and a narrative of the death of the '60s dream.

"A fine view of rock's most inspired folly." Mojo

"Vivid . . . it views the band's disintegration with the same excluded bafflement with which Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern follow the plots of the Danish court." Guardian

Cover design & typography / mail@EstuaryEnglish.co.uk
Cover photograph / Don McCullin
Reverse photograph of author / Richard DiLello

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