Richard DiLello

Richard DiLello turned first-hand experience inside the Beatles' business world into The Longest Cocktail Party. He worked at Apple Records from 1968 to 1970 in the informal role of "house hippie," moving among musicians, press officers, managers, and visitors at the company's Savile Row headquarters. His book follows Apple Corps through its ambitious launch, daily publicity work, mounting disorder, and the Beatles' transition toward separate careers. First published in 1972, it combines workplace memoir with popular-music history and preserves the viewpoint of someone whose job placed him near the label's personalities and routines. Alfred Music later issued an edition with a new foreword by DiLello, while library records trace the original Playboy Press publication. That publishing history has kept his insider chronicle in circulation for readers interested in the organization around the Beatles as well as the group itself.