TONI PRICE at Continental Club 10-14-08

Toni, while living in Austin, used to do a Happy Hour show at the Continental every Tuesday night, starting at 6:30pm. I believe it was a little over a year ago she moved from Austin to California. Since the move she gets back for the Happy Hour show about once a month. Finally, last night I got to see one of these shows. Although it's posted as a 6:30pm start, she didn't hit the stage until almost 7:30pm.
She is a trip.
First, though, I should talk about the music. What a voice. She's known mainly as a blues singer but really, that is just a category to stick her in. While she does do a lot of blues songs, there is also a little country, a little folk, anything she wants as she has the voice that can handle it all, sultry and soulful.
She is accompanied by Rich Brotherton, a most excellent guitarist, who is also Robert Earl Keen's lead guitar player.
She started off with a rollicking "In Care of the Blues" and went on to "Tumbleweed," "Beautiful Garden" and "Talk Memphis," among many others. To say how important Rich is to her sound can't be overstated.
As great a voice as Toni has, she's an even better whiskey drinker. Jack Daniels is her best friend. Her first set lasted about an hour. She managed to knock off at least 4 shots during that time. And she slugs them back without flinching, kind of like me when I slam water. Maybe I just run in the wrong crowd but I've never seen anybody throw that stuff back as easily as she does. At the break she had 2 more shots lined up. Her demeanor never changed.
She is very funny. At one point when she was running low on Jack, she called out to the bartender "more whiskey for my men & horses!" and then said "no, wait, more whiskey and a man for me and my horse!" At that point she told Rich "write that down, that's a good line." It was that kind of banter between songs. As much as I enjoyed her singing, it was also like being at a stand-up comic's show.
She is well worth the price of admission, which was $15. We left after the first set due to it being a school night and her late start threw everything out of whack for us. We plan on catching a full show in the near future.