Like many people, anthropology professor Stevan Jackson played an instrument in elementary school — the clarinet. But what began as a typical elementary school interest became the seed that grew into a 30-year musical profession, numerous trips to the British Isles and a passionate academic career in ethnomusicology.

Jackson recalls forming a strong interest in jazz around sixth grade. At the same time, his parents were playing more folk and country around the house. That eclectic mix produced Benny Goodman as a hero of Jackson’s, as well as Joan Baez.

His interest in jazz and folk and the relationships between them sparked a strong interest in anthropology. “I began to see the cultural relationships between where the music came from and between different places,” he says. “All of this started coming at me about the same time — all this music and interest in different cultures.”

Raised in Knoxville, Jackson grew up with many opportunities to listen to live music as well. “I still remember listening to Flatt and Scruggs, and them saying that bluegrass was folk music with an overdrive,” he recalls with a smile.

One big influence came from Joan Baez’s two-album set comprised primarily of ballads from the British Isles.

“For some reason, telling those stories through musical form just fascinated me,” he says.

“I still remember an early recording of the old traditional folk song of ‘Knoxville Girl,’ which I thought was neat because that’s where I was and the fact that it was related to a British ballad. When other people were listening to the Beatles and Chubby Checker and doing the twist, there I was listening to Joan Baez, Pete Seeger and Flatt and Scruggs. People thought I was weird, but here I am.”

Jackson, who also “dabbles” in the Gaelic language, feels that to understand the music of the cultures he studies — Scotland, Ireland and Appalachia — it’s important to have at least a cursory knowledge of the instruments. “Any instrument related to that kind of music I tend to pick up,” says the soft-spoken Jackson. “I may not play it well, but I do pick it up and try it.” Currently, he plays Celtic harp (his instrument du jour), the guitar, banjo, dulcimer, penny whistle and Autoharp. He has also played saxophone professionally with a band called the Midnighters (“In the Midnight Hour” was their theme song) and guitar for a band called the Starlighters, among others. He has done numerous solo performances over the past 30 years and produced one album containing mostly original songs and performed solo on a variety of instruments. He’s working on a solo harp album now.

Inspired by good music of all types, Jackson hopes his students learn an appreciation of the diversity of culture from him. “Culture is a wonderful thing to study, and what makes it wonderful is its diversity,” he says. “There is so much difference within culture — just within one culture, much less the entire world. As I study each of these cultures individually and find all the diversity, then compare them, it’s even more exciting to see that through the diversity come similarities.”