SUSAN: With us on "To Tell The Truth" we have best-selling recording artist and TV personality Bill Waley. Welcome, Bill. BILL: Hi, Susan. SUSAN: Now, Bill, do you consider yourself a born musician, or did you have to work hard to get where you are? BILL: There's always hard work involved ... I suppose I did have a sort of natural talent that got me started ... then I've always loved music. SUSAN: You looked away just then – why? BILL: Did I? Ah – I suppose I've just told a bit of a fib, really. You see, when I was about seven or eight, because I had this natural talent my parents pushed me very hard in the direction of music ... they really pressured me into practising and studying and, I ... I wasn't the most cooperative or malleable child on earth, far from it... I took against music altogether for about five or six years ... and didn't come back to it until my late teens. I was a very angry, very rebellious teenager – it took me ages to realise that part of my problem was that I was missing music. It's like denying that you love someone because you imagine there's some ... some obstacle between you or they're sort of, erm, out of your reach or ... or ... something, and then you realise you're making yourself miserable. I really loved music ... I was just trying to punish my parents, I suppose – like all kids do, but I took it to extremes. SUSAN: Were your mother and father good parents? BILL: Yes, yes, of course they were. SUSAN: But? BILL: Yes, um, but ... well, they were climbers, I suppose – social climbers, career-ladder climbers ... my father was a senior partner in a large law firm, you know, and my mother was an investment banker ... for her to be that at that time just, just shows how determined she really was ... and I think they pushed me too much in the same direction. I mean, I'm not like them – I don't care about social status, and I was never really interested in material success the way they were. SUSAN: Though you've certainly achieved it. BILL: Well, yes ... but I saw my parents living the way they did and I kept thinking, I'm not doing this right, I'm not good enough for them, I'm supposed to be some hoity-toity classical pianist or something, certainly not a jazz musician. SUSAN: Did they learn to accept you? BILL: Well, I suppose ... but rather looked down on me, until financial success and fame started to come my way. I'm not saying they were superficial, uncaring or anything... it's just that they'd both had hard lives, they were afraid I'd end up some down-and-out beatnik type. They had goals, specific goals, and they wanted me to have the same. SUSAN: And what about the present? Are you satisfied with where you are now? BILL: Satisfied? Not really, no. Because of my childhood, the way I was brought up – as I already said – I'm a complete and total perfectionist. I'll do things again and again to get them right – what I think is right, or as close as I can get to it. I like my life, I enjoy my work. Satisfied, no ... but there's always something to aim for, and, I get a lot of pleasure from what I do. SUSAN: And I know from my own experience that people get a lot of pleasure from your music. Thank you. Bill, for telling us the truth about yourself. BILL: Thanks for giving me the chance.