Sept. 5, 2026
By Julia Buskirk, VernonReporter
This spring, Sweet Milk & Peaches of Readstown, Wis. released “A Stitch in Time,” a new full-length album featuring original songs by Liz Voz and fiddle tunes by Jesse Downs, with musical accompaniment by multi-instrumentalist Davy Schmitz and bassist Beau Sample. Their album release show is 5:00-7:00 p.m. on the patio at Maybe Lately’s in Viroqua, Wis. on Monday, Sept. 7.
“A Stitch in Time” comes out of nearly two decades of Voz and Downs playing music together––a mixture of their originals, as well as old country songs, polkas, and old-time music, a genre of North American folk music with roots in the rural South. The couple also call and play square dances across the region, while raising their kids and tending to an orchard and homestead outside of Readstown, Wis.
“Our lifestyle and our music, it’s hard to separate the two for us,” said Jesse Downs.
Their band name—Sweet Milk & Peaches—comes from an old-time tune. As folks attending the Viroqua Farmers’ Market over the years already know, they also grow peaches on their farm.
“Part of the reason we live as we do, is because of the music we play, and vice-versa,” said Downs.
The fifteen tracks on the album are a window into their lives in Southwestern Wisconsin. It features several fiddle tunes Downs has written throughout his life as a fiddler across the Midwest region and Liz Voz’s original songs written as she navigated motherhood, relationships, and life on and around her farm.
Both Voz and Downs grew up around music. Downs began fiddling as a teenager in Duluth, going to jams with his tape recorder, and eventually playing fiddle at the local schools during the square dance units in music and physical education classes. He moved to North Carolina for school and to immerse himself in the old-time music tradition of the south before life took him back to the Midwest and he settled in Southwestern Wisconsin to farm and play music.
Today, most of his fiddling consists of old-time tunes, with an interest in music from the Midwest.
“I feel like there are so many great tunes out there that don’t get played,” Downs said.
Still, as a lifetime fiddler it’s hard to completely avoid inventing new ones.
“I try not to make up tunes, but sometimes I have to,” Downs said, laughing.
The album features several of his originals, including “The Laundromat Stomp,” which was born in the Gays Mills Laundromat during the Gays Mills Folk Festival, accompanied at the time with percussion on a washing machine. He wrote “Way Down South in Grant County” in honor of Illinois fiddler Gary Harrison after he died. Harrison was an important member of the old-time music community, writing original tunes and also taking field recordings of old fiddlers across Illinois.
Voz’ entry into playing music came a little later in life than her partner Downs. While she grew up in Minneapolis with her family’s Cajun band rehearsing in her house, it wasn’t until she moved across the country as a young adult that she realized how much she missed music and decided to pick up a guitar and learn to play. It would be another decade though, before Voz wrote her own music.
“I was interested in writing songs back then, but I felt like I didn’t have anything interesting to write about,” Voz reflected. “Nothing intense enough that I felt like I had to get it out.”
The song-writing came later, after she had moved to Southwestern Wisconsin to farm. As Voz’s children became teenagers, she started facing more challenges as a mother.
“A lot of those songs are from me struggling with my teenager,” Voz said. “He was struggling so hard as a teenager.”
Voz’ son was dealing with drug addiction and often running away. She described driving around the county, searching for him, and often getting phone calls in the middle of the night from the police.
“It was a constant state of anxiety,” Voz said. “Anxiety and heartbreak.”
To get through her days, Voz turned to songwriting. The album’s title track was written for her son.
“I’m an emotional rollercoaster. When I have a lot of feelings, I have to figure out how to vent in a productive way or I’ll be unhealthy,” Voz said. “For me, (songwriting) is a necessary outlet that feels productive too.”
Voz’s songs span a range of topics, from motherhood, to life on the farm, her past relationships, and her challenges with depression.
“It was really hard for me at first to sing my songs for other live humans because they’re so emotionally sensitive,” Voz said.
Voz likened them to an open wound that needed time to heal and callus over before she could share them more broadly.
“It took a long time. But then once I was over it and willing to, it’s really cathartic and feels really good to get them out and it feels good when people say, ‘oh that really moves me, or speaks to me. I’m glad that you wrote that’,” Voz said. “It feels good to commiserate with feelings.”
Voz began performing her songs in the region with her partner Jesse Downs, who accompanied her on fiddle and vocals. Davy Schmitz, who the couple first met at square dances in the area, accompanied with a combination of mandolin and pedal-steel guitar. Beau Sample, friend and collaborator, joined them on the bass.
Sample was the catalyst to finally get them to record the songs and fiddle tunes to share with a larger audience this year.
“For me it’s in the name of art,” said Voz. “I love creating things, and hope that people are excited about them.”
For the couple, music still remains just one piece of their lives in Southwestern Wisconsin.
“There are too many things I also want,” Voz said. “I can’t imagine not farming. Growing all my own food, to me, that’s the most important thing in my life is being able to live off grid and feed myself.”
It also keeps the music special.
“It still feels really amazing to play, and I enjoy it so much,” Voz said. “It feels like this really amazing special thing that I’m allowed to do sometimes.”
Listeners can find their album for streaming or purchase here and find them playing at the upcoming 11th Annual Tasty Tomato Festival. Their album release show is 5:00-7:00 p.m. at Maybe Lately’s in Viroqua, Wis. on Monday, Sept. 7.
Julia Buskirk reports, paints, and writes fiction in Southwestern Wisconsin. She is a graduate of UW-Madison where she studied Conservation Biology and Journalism.
Whoa well ain’t that something this hear band playin music and farmin’ and what not! By Golly! I just better get right on over to bandcamp and buy their album…