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.

 

In 1975, The Bob Kuban Brass recorded an album entitled Get Ready for Some Rock & Soul for Norman

Records.  In the late ’80s, the same label issued two 45s-“Everybody’s Gonna Have A Party” and “Triple

Shot Of Rhythm & Blues.”