Return To 60’s Main Menu Recording Artists Of The 60s
BOB KUBAN & THE IN-MEN
“THE CHEATER”
(John Mike Krenski)
Musicland 20001
No. 12 March 12, 1966
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The lyrics to “The Cheater,” Bob Kuban & The In-Men’s big hit, prefigured ironically in the fate of lead
singer “Sir” Walter Scott, who met an untimely end at the hands of his wife and her lover.
“We were putting together the In-Men again,” Bob Kuban recalled in an exclusive interview. “This was
1983. We had formed the band in 1964, and the 20th anniversary was coming up. Wally was excited
about the idea… He’d been on the road a long time, and was planning on being home for the Christmas
holidays. He left his home in his jogging suit and running shoes to get a battery for his car, and nobody
ever saw him again–he just vanished, two days after Christmas . . Three and a half years later, in April
of ’87, they found his body stuffed in a cistern.”
The assistant prosecuting attorney for the case determined that Wally Scott (real name: Walter
Notheis) had been tied up and shot in the back execution-style, and Scott’s wife and her lover were
indicted for murder.
In 1963, when Kuban (b. Aug. 1940, St. Louis) and Scott first met, Bob was a high school teacher who
played drums for weekend wedding gigs, and Wally was lead singer in a group called the Pacemakers.
Bob recruited Wally for a band he was putting together that included Pat Hixon (trumpet), Greg
Hoeltzel (keyboards), Mike Krenski (bass), Ray Schulte (guitar), Harry Simon (tenor sarL), and Skip
Weisser (trombone). Almost immediately, Norman Weinstoer had the Bobby Kuban Band record for
his Norman label, but neither “I Don’t Want To Know” nor “Jerkin’ Time” charted.
A friend of Weinstoer, Mel Freedman, heard the band and “The Cheater” (which, in its original form,
was written in the first person, as “Look out for me, I’m the cheater”). Freedman had some connec-
tions in New York with Bell/Amy Records, and promised the group that if they went with him and
his Musicland Records, they would get some national distribution. “The Cheater” was the first Bob
Kuban & The In-Men single released under this arrangement. Two albums and two 45s–“The Teaser”
(#70) and “Drive My Car” (#93)–appeared in 1966. Scott, Hoeltzel, Krenski, and Schulte spun off and
recorded as the Guise. Kuban recruited replacements, and cut two further singles on the Musicland
labei–“Harlem Shuffle” and “The Batman Theme.” In 1970, one final disk appeared on Reprise, “Soul
Man” /w “Hard To Handle.” Despite the youthful Brit Sound, Guise never checked into the national
charts After an attempted solo career, Scott returned to the band for a brief period.
Kuban currently leads a band under his own name. But where are the In-Men of “The Cheater” fame
now? “Greg’s a dentist; Harry’s a schoolteacher; Pat’s a computer programmer; Skip’s out in Vegas
and has been working as a bartender; and Mike’s been working with McDonald Aircraft. We’re all still
in contact with each other,” said Kuban.