The roots of Cressida were sown in March 1968, when guitarist "Rock & Roll" John Heyworth answered an advertisement in Melody Maker, and later travelled to London to join The Dominators, a band whose situation he later described as "hopeless - until Angus Cullen applied for the lead singer spot".
The band's early setlists included covers of songs by The Doors ("Spanish Caravan"), The Drifters ("Save the Last Dance for Me") and Spirit ("Fresh Garbage"), alongside original compositions by Cullen and Heyworth.
In the Summer of 1969, shortly after returning from a German tour, the band's organist Lol Coker decided to leave, and moved back to Liverpool to marry his Swiss girlfriend and take over his father's business.
But Rosen soon fell out with producer Ossie Byrne (of early Bee Gees fame), and from that point Mel Baister assumed managerial duties.
Other forays into Europe included a trip to Bratislava in November 1969, where they performed at the end of a week's competition between various bands from the Eastern bloc; a week supporting Black Sabbath at Brussels' Theatre 140; and a performance at the Open Circus (an event held in a large tent with lion taming, fire eating and other side shows) in Rouen, France, alongside Brian Auger, Barclay James Harvest, Man and Circus.
The new line-up recorded Cressida's second LP, Asylum, later in 1970 (again with Byrne producing, and with orchestral arrangements by Graeme Hall), but it was released posthumously in 1971, the band having broken up in September 1970.
Culley linked up with Black Widow and from 1981 to 1984, joined Colin Tench to launch the London six-piece progressive rock band Odin.
In September 2013, they appeared at the Melloboat festival in Sweden, on which occasion Choices, a limited edition LP of archive material personally selected by Opeth's Mikael Åkerfeldt (a longtime fan of the band) was released.