Apple to the Core
| Industry | Music, Entertainment |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1968 |
| Founder | The Beatles |
| Headquarters | United Kingdom |
| Products | Music and related business ventures |
Apple to the Core: The Unmaking of the Beatles is a 1972 publication authored by Peter McCabe and Robert D. Schonfeld, released in the United States through Pocket Books. Issued two years following the dissolution of the British group the Beatles, the book centers on the financial difficulties that beset their Apple Corps company.
Book content
Before the book's publication in February 1972, McCabe contributed an article to New York magazine accusing Apple's business manager, Allen Klein, of withholding funds collected for UNICEF via former Beatle George Harrison's live album The Concert for Bangladesh and causing delays in its distribution. These allegations led Klein to initiate a $150 million libel lawsuit against McCabe and New York in the State Supreme Court, although he eventually retracted the suit.
Apple to the Core offers a critical perspective on Klein, asserting that the Beatles suffered from poor management from the outset, with their initial manager Brian Epstein depicted as passionate yet inconsistent and overwhelmed by his role.
The book by McCabe and Schonfeld was among the earliest works to scrutinize the Beatles' business dealings critically, alongside similar contemporary publications such as Richard DiLello's The Longest Cocktail Party (1972) and Wilfrid Mellers' Twilight of the Gods: The Beatles in Retrospect (1973).
Publication and reception
Initially published in 1972 by Pocket Books in the United States, Apple to the Core was also issued later that year in Britain by Brian & O'Keefe, where it received a negative critique from the Times newspaper. Phil Hardy, writing for Let It Rock, faulted the authors for not delivering a persuasive account, portraying Epstein as a "hero" while casting Klein and the Eastman family in an unfavorable light. Hardy ultimately deemed the book "a failure," though he acknowledged its promise as a new approach to rock literature.
In 1977, Beatles biographer Nicholas Schaffner characterized Apple to the Core as "[a]n irreverent but definitive unraveling of the web of financial intrigue that destroyed the Beatles". Chris Ingham, providing an assessment for Rough Guides, regards it as a "title worth seeking out," despite its long period out of print.