New York Times, May 11, 2008

Music Issue

Rockin’ the Casbah

By STEVE DOUGHERTY

FROM his perch on a rooftop terrace near the crenelated western ramparts of the walled city, a visitor from England watched the sun set in spectacular display over the Atlantic Ocean. As it disappeared on the cloudless horizon, the sun’s rays cast a golden glow on a rising crescent moon decorated on the eve of the summer solstice by a silvery alignment of planets and stars.

“Nice touch, that,” quipped Bill Corbett, a 39-year-old London photographer, D.J. and music fanatic whose visit to Essaouira, an exotic, wind- and sun-swept Moroccan city on the northwest coast of Africa, for the 10th-annual Gnawa and World Music Festival, would prove a transforming experience. “This really is a midsummer night’s dream.”

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http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/travel/11essaouira.html?pagewanted=print