THE VILLAGES — If the idea of Charo playing an acoustic guitar doesn’t compute in your mind, the entertainer has a surprise for you.
“‘Cuchi-cuchi’ is where I get the money,” Charo said. “When I sit on the stool and play guitar, that’s where I get the respect.
“If someone’s at the entrance (of an auditorium), they’ll see a poster (of me) and say, ‘Oh, she’s fun.’ ‘How old is she?’ On the way out, the same people are saying, ‘Oh, goodness gracious. I never expected that.’”
Charo plans on wowing audiences with her guitar work when she returns to The Villages to perform at 5 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. Tuesday at Katie Belle’s as part of its Up Close and Personal Series.
Local vocalist Mary Jo Vitale is opening the concert.
Doors for the 5 p.m. show open at 3:30 p.m., and people must be seated by 4 p.m., while doors for the 8:30 p.m. show open at 7:15 p.m., and people must be seated by 7:45 p.m.
The 5 p.m. show will include dinner, while the 8:30 p.m. show will have appetizer and dessert service.
Tickets for the show are $ 30-$ 45 for residents and $ 35-50 for the public, and are available by calling Katie Belle’s at 750-9411 or the Cattle Baron Club at 750-5981.
Charo said that her Katie Belle’s performance will feature a new show full of flamenco and classical music on the acoustic guitar, as well as bits of comedy.
“The show is so hot and new,” Charo said. “The music, it goes to your soul. I’m very excited.”
She enjoys playing a more intimate setting so people can see her fingerwork on the guitar. If she is playing in front of a larger crowd, she will put more spectacle into her show.
Charo, who said she lives in Beverly Hills, Calif., Las Vegas, Hawaii, and numerous hotel rooms, last performed in The Villages in 2007.
“It was a tremendous audience full of life,” Charo said.
Charo was born Maria Rosario Pilar Martinez Molina Baeza in the town of Murcia, Spain.
“I try so hard to talk without an accent,” Charo said. “It’s probably so deep in my DNA, the Castillian style. I don’t think I’m doing too good.”
At the age of 7, Charo got a guitar that had belonged to a gypsy. A local man who played flamenco guitar every night showed Charo how to play the instrument.
“I could not believe what that small instrument (was creating), the sound, the harmony,” Charo said. “It turned into a passion.”
Two years later, Charo decided she wanted to make the guitar her main instrument.
Her parents took her to Madrid where Andrés Segovia held his guitar school. She auditioned and was accepted.
“I was jumping like a jumping bean,” Charo said when she learned the news.
For seven years, she studied classical guitar at Segovia’s school.
“I studied music the right way,” Charo said. “I learned to write a score. Once in a while, Segovia would show up. He’d give this speech, then say, ‘Play something.’”
At the age of 16, Charo graduated from the school with honors.
She soon joined Xavier Cugat and his band, and they headed across the ocean to Las Vegas. This was during a time when flamenco wasn’t well-known in America.
“Flamenco is like good sangria,” Charo said. “It’s powerful, a high. They know what it is now; it’s an art. (Back then) they weren’t ready for this music.
“Then I said, ‘Cuchi-cuchi.’ I did what the producer wanted.”
Throughout her career, Charo made more than 45 appearances on “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson,” and she was a regular guest on “The Love Boat” and “Hollywood Squares.”
She returned to her classical and flamenco guitar roots when she created such albums as 1994’s “Guitar Passion” and 2005’s “Charo and Guitar.”
Her dance-club version of “España Cañi,” a song played during bullfights, became part of a music video called “España Cañi: Dance, Don’t Bullfight” that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is using to protest bullfighting.
And this weekend, Charo will be making her 23rd appearance on Jerry Lewis’ Muscular Dystrophy Association Labor Day telethon.
Charo considers her career path a combination of “family and education and luck.”
“(Playing the guitar is) what keeps my career going,” Charo said. “I’ve never rested as one type (of performer). Now is the moment. I don’t dwell in the past.
“Music is my high. It’s an incredible feeling.”
Michael Fortuna is a reporter with the Daily Sun. He can be reached at 753-1119, ext. 9234, or michael.fortuna[at]thevillagesmedia.com.
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