Jeff Bates

Jeff Bates is an American country singer from Bunker Hill, Mississippi. Wielding an impressive singing voice, he was eventually signed to RCA in 2002, after having served time in jail for grand larceny. He had started stealing from friends to pay for an 18 month long meth addiction. He went through withdrawal in a jail cell and credits prayer and a 12 step program for staying clean.

He is friends with and has co-written a number of songs with Kenny Beard. While in jail, he called Beard to let him know where he had pawned Beard's favorite guitar for drug money. According to Jeff's website, everyone he called from jail forgave him.

==Personal Life=

At 3 months old, Bates was given up by his biological mother and adopted by a sharecropping family. Of his early life, Bates remembers "Hell, we didn't have much, and didn't know there was much to have. We were poor. But I had a great mama and daddy, and lots of love—and I think that right there can set you up for just about anything."

In August 2006, a $3,500 guitar which was a gift to Bates from the Takamine guitar company and used in his video "One Second Chance" was stol...