Feisty, upbeat Charo a mix of style, humor, virtuosity and unending enthusiasm

Spend a few minutes chatting with the awesomely irrepressible human adrenaline shot that is Charo, and you feel kind of like one of those winded NFL players you see sitting on the sidelines on TV, sucking on an oxygen tank.

Her words come bundled in such effusive bursts, that she could recite the ingredients to a bottle of Prell and make it sound like a life or death yarn.

Right now, she's recounting the tale of how she once helped turn Jim Nabors into a soprano.

Back in the mid-'70s, Charo and the "Gomer Pyle" star appeared in a variety show in Vegas, and one night, Nabors received an eye-widening surprise.

"I kicked him in his balls and he passed out on the stage. I'm not kidding you," Charo says with a feisty laugh while she waits in the Miami airport for a plane to New York City. "I didn't know he was behind me. And with my high heels, I got him. Jim Nabors will never forgive me."

Charo teems with story after story from her many years of performing here over three decades. In many ways she's the prototypical Vegas headliner, a mix of style and virtuosity, humor and hormones, all topped off with the kind of boundless energy inherent in a 24-hour city.

As such, she's eager to make her return to the Riviera -- but then again, Charo's the kind of ceaselessly enthusiastic gal who could get excited about organizing a sock drawer.

"I want to bring something unique, because in Las Vegas everything has been done and invented," she says. "So I go back to my roots, I go back to the music that I hear when my mother was breast-feeding me. In that music, I am the best, because I've got it in my DNA.

"In this show, I was able to combine two different types of music in the same program," she continues. "The first part of the show is just all of the hot, hot hits on the 'Billboard International' chart, music designed to make people want to dance and lift their spirits. The second part, I change completely into a celebration of music from the soul. I have with me the best male flamenco dancer in the world, trust me. I am choreographing something very spectacular."

Charo's exuberance, self-deprecating one-liners and famed "coochie coochie" catchphrase sometimes obscure an important fact: She's a world-class guitar player and classically trained musician who's a semisavant in flamenco music.

"That's my main thing," she says. "I've trained and studied with great teachers, and one of them is Andres Segovia. He's the greatest guitarist ever born in my country of Spain. I studied for seven years in his institution, I graduated with honors and I came to the United States.

"I was invited to do the 'Tonight Show,' " she continues, "I say 'coochie coochie' because I did not speak English, and the next day all my training went out of the window and nobody gave a damn if I was trained as a musician. They go for 'coochie coochie,' which is OK, because that's how I make my living, until one day I looked into the mirror and I said, 'Enough.' I'm using the joke for five minutes, and then after that, I'm going to see if I can do what I was trained for."

These days, Charo is using her musical chops to advocate for a cause close to her heart: the abolition of bullfighting, which is big in her native Spain.

"I am against bullfighting, I hate it," she fumes. "I hope one of these days, the bull gets the bullfighter. Really. I think it's barbaric, and Spanish people are very, very cruel to allow this to go on.

"So, I pick out the most famous bullfight theme song, 'Espana Cani,' and I record it with a very techno sound, and I use it as a pulpit against bullfighting," she continues. "It's making a lot of noise. Before I know it, people started calling me, 'Hey, you are on the charts.' So I was happy, because I was using that song to show to young people, 'Don't fight, dance.' The matador uses the music to kill the bull, but the young people use it to dance."

The song has become a top 20 hit on the Billboard dance charts and an international success.

When she has a cause to represent, Charo is even more lively than usual, which is really saying something.

She takes the issue seriously and would like the same treatment in return.

Still, she knows how to wink and jiggle her way to the bank.

She's very smart when it comes to playing dumb, and even better when it comes to playing her guitar.

"The 'coochie coochie' B.S., it's just good for a moment and good for the bank account, but it's not good for my soul," she says. "When I play the guitar I find myself."

Contact reporter Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476.