Contrary to the title, Nash's second solo album offers no wild tales but instead delivers retrospective observations in a restrained country-rock style. Nash, who not long ago produced David Blue to maximum advantage, is overly modest in producing himself. Wild Tales is reflective without being poetic; its spirit is one of post-Woodstock enervation. Nash's finest past achievement was "Lady of the Islands," a gentle evocation of erotic enchantment. The less impressive "Teach Your Children" and "Chicago" were at least effective social commentaries, given the rhetoric of their time.

They are all preferable to Nash's newest material, which shows him uninterested in dealing with Seventies realities.

Nash's philosophy seems to be a blase fatalism that can be boiled down to a few catch phrases: "Take it as it comes/You will find a way/To get there" ("Wild Tales"); "Music gets you high/Everybody grows/And so it goes" ("And So It Goes").

The better songs depart from the familiar Crosby, Stills and Nash preoccupations. "You'll Never Be the Same," a sweet country weeper, is a competent execution of Nashville conventions. "Oh! Camil (The Winter Soldier)," a cryptic inquiry into the mind of a soldier returning from war, has as its appeal a straightforward folk melody given an early Dylan type of arrangement. What might have been the album's best song, "On The Line," questions the value of stardom and material reward. But the question is posed rhetorically: "Don't the wind blow cold/When you're hanging your soul/On the line." Nash apparently isn't going to hang his soul on the line any more. He's a good musician and a nice-sounding guy who's either very tired or very content. (RS 154)

STEPHEN HOLDEN