Jeff Bates has certainly come a long way since his start in the music business. Through family problems, money problems, marriage problems, and drug problems, Jeff has beaten all odds and become a successful, clean country music star.

Jeff Bates was born in Bunker Hill, Mississippi and later adopted by Ed and Barbara Bates. As a child Jeff was raised on gospel songs along with his eight brothers and sisters and two cousins that later joined the Bates house. School life was hard for Jeff who, poor and shy, was picked on and had few friends. At the age of 14 he was suspended from school for fighting and his father told him he didn’t need to go back to school; he would take over the job of running a bulldozer for Ed who was developing health problems. By the time Jeff was 17, he had never been out of Marion County, Mississippi and wanted to see the world. He joined the National Guard and later began work on an oil rig.

With the insistence of a friend, Jeff got up to sing on the stage of the Colonial Steak House in Columbia, Mississippi. After singing a few songs, Jeff met with the club owner who offered him $50 a night to sing in the club. He accepted and quit his job at the oil rig. While singing at the club, Jeff met a waitress, fell in love, and got married within a year. Unfortunately, the marriage only lasted a few years and Jeff moved to Seminary, Mississippi where he continued singing but also took up a carpentry job. He later moved on to welding but music became his love and he decided to pursue a career in the music business.

Jeff moved to Little Rock, Arkansas to develop his career and met his manager that he later married. In 1993, he formed the band, Southern Storm and later began writing songs with other writers in Nashville. His wife advised him to move back to Little Rock, where she believed he would be more successful. Listening to his wife, Jeff moved back but, contrary to his wife’s beliefs, he lost all of the progress he had made and almost ruined his career, let alone his life. He started going back to Nashville to write songs and hopefully get signed to a recording label. After he moved back to Nashville permanently, Jeff met Connie who he would later marry.

Although things were starting to look up, Jeff got caught up in drugs and sold his musical equipment and stole thousands of dollars of musical equipment to pay for more drugs. He was sent to jail in 2001 with no hope or faith. A few days into his sentence, after the drugs had worn off, Jeff awoke understanding what he had done. He began phoning everyone he stole from and apologized and even asked his wife to divorce him because she deserved better. “That's when I met God and started talking to him. I prayed, ‘I know I've messed up. And I’m not asking for anything except tell me what I’m supposed to do,” Jeff explained. The next day he heard that Gene Watson had recorded two of his songs and Tracy Lawrence recorded “What a Memory,” a song written by him and Kenny Beard.

When he found out he called Kenny, apologized, and told him where he had pawned Old Magic, his prize guitar, that Jeff had sold for money. Kenny accepted him and made Jeff promise to see him when he was released. After he got out, he found that Connie had stayed with him and he later went to see Kenny who gave him Old Magic, pawn ticket still attached to keep him from getting into drugs again.

He began work pouring concrete while he perfected his songwriting and eventually earned his songwriting contract. In the meantime, RCA came across a few of his tapes and he was asked to sing for the executives of the label. They were impressed, signed him to the label, and in 2003, released his debut single, “The Love Song.” His debut album, Rainbow Man, was also released that year. In 2006, Jeff released his second album, Leave the Light On, with the hit songs, “One Second Chance” and the sultry ballad "Long, Slow Kisses."