Something about Satchmo intrigued Margaret Glaspy.

“I’d sit by the speaker and try to imitate his voice when I was 10,” the graduating senior from Mercy Catholic High School in Red Bluff said about Louis Armstrong.

He and other music legends in her father’s jazz collection – singers like Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Etta James — influenced Glaspy as she developed her own deep-throated bluesy style.

Now at 18, her voice is nabbing national attention. She recently won a $10,000 top prize in a young artists competition on her way to being named one of only 20 Presidential Scholars in the Arts for 2007. That honor comes with an opportunity to perform at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. in June.

Not bad for a small-town girl who never had formal voice training.

Explaining her star pupil’s unique sound, Cheryl Ramirez, Mercy principal, said, “Margaret is basically self-taught, a natural talent. She sings from a place deep in her soul and that makes all the difference in her music.”

Officials at the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts chose Glaspy from more than 7,000 applicants as one of the 141 finalists to participate in their annual young artists program.

Her all-expense-paid week in Miami was packed with master classes, performances, exhibitions and final competitions in the visual, performing and literary arts. She was one of the top six winners, and took home a gold award plus the large cash prize.

“The whole week was a great experience,” the long-haired brunette said as she kicked off her clogs and folded herself into a chair for an interview on the last day of class.

Glaspy was among the 50 young artists in the program who were nominated as Presidential Scholars in the Arts. An appointed commission made the final selection for the U.S. Department of Education.

She said the experience has been more about the music than the award.

“Being told ‘you’re amazing’ is not always a good thing. It can stop young artists from going further,” she said.

Instead of dwelling on her accomplishments, she prefers to fill her cell phone with the numbers of new artists she met in Miami. They stay in touch and fuel each other’s ongoing creative efforts.

She became involved with the music world when she started playing the fiddle in fourth grade. “I sang as part of the performances, and then just kept going,” she said.

Through fiddle competitions she met players who helped her artistic pursuits, especially national fiddle champs Tristan Clarridge and his sister Tashina. She travels with them to small venue performances.

“We do jazz and folk and some Texas-style fiddling,” Glaspy said.

Mercy Catholic High School gave her a place to be herself and to develop her talents.

“Being at Mercy, at such a small school, you make close friends and get recognized for your personality rather than your accomplishments,” she said.

She sang lead roles for Mercy’s spring musicals in her junior and senior years. But the high-range numbers she performed from “Guys and Dolls” and “West Side Story” are the opposite of the dusky blues songs she favors, the kind she wraps her voice around like warm honey.

“Margaret is an absolutely refreshing young girl. She has complete confidence in herself and yet is totally devoid of any surface ego,” said pianist Denise Peters, staff accompanist in Mercy’s music department.

Berklee College of Music in Boston, Mass., has offered Glaspy a partial scholarship.

“I hope to go — if we can figure out the finances,” she said, referring to her parents whom she called “very supportive.”

Although they’re not eager to have their youngest daughter move so far away, “they’re kind of setting themselves up to let me go,” she said.

Glaspy sees herself always pursuing music. She recently began writing her own songs.

“It’s about doing what you love. As long as you like it a lot, it doesn’t matter if you’re paid well. If there’s no passion behind what you do, it’s not going to work out,” she said.

This summer she’ll sing and play the fiddle in New York City, Cambridge and other New England cities with Joy Kills Sorrow, a modern American stringband.

She’ll reunite with the other Presidential Scholars in the Arts to perform at the Kennedy Center on June 25. During that week they, along with the 121 Presidential Scholars chosen on the basis of academics and leadership, will be honored at a ceremony sponsored by the White House.

Any chance her plans include a stint on American Idol?

“No,” she answers emphatically. She doesn’t like the ridicule the judges heap upon contestants.

“There are so many beautiful obscure voices,” she said. “I just know they’d reject them and tell them never to sing again.”

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