Chimera 1969~1970

O'kay, so what do you need from a sleeve note? Recording dates? Personnel? History? Musical critique? Or should the music be allowed to speak (or remain silent) for itself? After all, the bare bones of the Chimera story — an album recorded for the Morgan Blue Town label at the end of the 60s fails to appear, but subsequently does the rounds on cassette, leaving collectors slack-jawed in wonder - will probably be known to the majority of potential purchasers of this long- awaited release. It could easily be argued, therefore, that any kind of background information is superfluous: all that most right-thinking folk want is the chance to hear and own Chimera’s music and then lovingly file it away in their collections between Chicken Shack and the Chocolate Watch Band.

But the fact of the matter is that the Chimera story, from the cradle to the grave, is more fascinating than you could even begin to imagine. A head-swirling confusion of innocence, envy, privilege and ambition against a backdrop of Swinging London, TV cameras, flirty teenagers, backstage passes, fake Norwegians, amateur groupies, go-go dancers, kinky boots and mini-skirts, it would actually be tantamount to dereliction of duty not to cover the Chimera story in detail. This, then, is their previously untold tale of famous names and silly girls. Oh, and there’s also some music in there somewhere too... — David Wells, December 2001.