Jay Ailan Whitham

Jay Aílan (ay-lan) Whitham (witt-um) is a journeyman musician. Born in Boston, he first picked up a guitar at age 9. By age 10 he had started to study the guitar seriously and joined his first band. An alumnus of Berklee College of Music, Jay has played virtually all types of music, in every kind of group imaginable. He has played venues from strip clubs to stadiums, street corners to studios. While he jokes that his career has been all downhill after his band opened for the Rolling Stones in a 1966 Boston concert when he was 16, he continues to perform with a profound joy and musical passion that has been nurtured for a lifetime. 

Jay and his wife Wendy moved to the Asheville area in 2007. Among his various musical activities these days he is a singer-songwriter, a solo performer, a studio musician, a teacher, and he plays regularly with the bands Clear Daze, Riftshifters, Strangers to Fame, and other Asheville area bands and artists, and since 2009 has been the guitarist with Jubilee!’s World Beat Band on Sundays at Jubilee! in Asheville.