Biography
Details surrounding Howard Chandler remain sparse, aside from his status as a promising talent affiliated with Sun Records in 1957 whose recordings stayed unreleased for many years. He composed “Wampus Cat,” now viewed as a cult classic in hillbilly or rockabilly circles, and the song’s title together with the regional folklore attached to the creature suggest he originated in Tennessee. For Wampus Records he laid down a midtempo hillbilly-rocker version of the number, coupled with “Island of Love,” which appeared in early 1958; two additional singles followed on the same imprint—“Black Gumbo Land” b/w “A Million Friends” and “Mean Old Tomcat” b/w “Before You Wanted to Be Free.” An alternate, more energetic take of “Wampus Cat,” slated to back “Golden Band” on a proposed single, surfaced decades afterward among the Sun Records holdings and reached the public in the 1990s through Bear Family Records. During that interval Johnny Burnette also recorded a song bearing the identical title, though it constitutes an essentially distinct piece, even while composer credit has been assigned to Chandler.