You couldn't turn on the TV in the 1970s - whether you clicked onto "Hollywood Squares" to "Love Boat" - and not see Charo. She became a ubiquitous cuchi-cuchi-ing personality.

Being a pop-culture fixture isn't necessarily a bad thing for a celebrity (any publicity is good publicity, right?). But the downside for Charo was that the public saw her as a flamboyant character, not as the fine musician she is. Hey, this is a woman that Guitar Player Magazine voted as Best Classical Flamenco Guitarist in the World. Twice.

See her in guitar-slinging action when she plays and sings Friday in concert at the Mohegan Sun Wolf Den.

In recent years, Charo has been performing everywhere from cruise ships to Vegas. She turned up on Bravo's "Watch What Happens Live!" last year to promote her new song that bore the shy-and-retiring title "Sexy! Sexy!"

If that makes you wonder just how old Charo is anyway, well, she says she's 61. But is she really? According to documents in Spain, she was born in 1941. Charo has this explanation for those documents: her parents let her falsify her age so she'd seem older when she was a 15-year-old marrying band leader Xavier Cugat - who was 66. Well, that makes me feel better.

- KRISTINA DORSEY

Charo, 8 p.m. Friday, Mohegan Sun Wolf Den;

free; mohegansun.com.