Cheshire Summer Stage Performers: Meet Laurie and Bruce!

This summer, on August 11, the Cheshire Summer Stage will be hosting Laurie and Bruce Knowlton of the Mile High Club.

Last summer, the Cheshire Summer Stage was revived by Susan Saradoff, who asked the couple to perform at the impromptu show at Farnam’s Causeway in Cheshire, Massachusetts.

“We had a good turnout considering we did it off the cuff with not much promotion,” Bruce said.

The success of last year’s concert has led Susan to create a nonprofit organization, the Cheshire Cultural Center, a nonprofit arts education organization focused on the living history of the area, giving community members a way to engage with oral histories in a unique way through storytelling, music, and theatre, combining arts performance and education.

For Laurie, the key to the big turnout was where they put posters for the day of the event: Ashuwillticook Rail Trail.

“You have lots and lots of people using that bike trail and when people saw the signs on the trail, they stopped by,” Laurie said.

This summer, the Cheshire Summer Stage will be hosting four musical events, including another performance from Laurie and Bruce.

The two have been playing music from a young age; Laurie, a classically trained pianist, has been working with Minerva Arts Center in Williamstown for the past 15 years and Bruce has been performing since 1970, drumming for bands before he was in high school.

“When you love something like that, there’s no weight to it,” Bruce said. “You’re really in the effervescent part of it.”

Their band, the Mile High Club, will be performing covers of late 60s and early 70s pop with a few originals thrown into the mix.

“We will play something that appeals to both people that are our age and people in their 20s and 30s,” Bruce said. “It’s music that has gotten a second life to it.”

Laurie and Bruce hope that this organization will help bring people from both outside and within the community together with music.

“It’s going to offer people something entirely different than what’s been going on here, in terms of any summer entertainment,” Bruce said. “It’s also going to get people from other parts of Berkshire County to come into the area who otherwise wouldn’t normally drive through here.”

The couple hopes the Cheshire Summer Stage will become an annual event, expanding out to an even larger event with more dates and more performers.

 “[After last summer,] We absolutely saw ourselves performing again this year,” Laurie said. “We hope it will be an annual thing so that Bruce and I will have a place to showcase our music.”

“It’s about music and it’s great – the Cheshire Summer Stage has the chance to grow and become multifaceted,” Bruce said.

Come check out the Cheshire Summer Stage this coming July and August at Farnam’s Causeway in Cheshire. For more details on the summer events and the organization, visit cheshireculturalcenter.org.