Some music bloggers will do anything for a good story


Philip Glass, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Maurice Jarre are all connected by this typically overgrown path to the hotel which was once a governor's palace seen in my photos. As I do not benefit from a Roger Wright-sized expense account, the hotels I frequent are functional rather than hip; which is why, as a rule, they do not feature here. But an exception just had to be made for the Hotel Palais Salam in Taroudant, southern Morocco. The city of Taroudant is located between the High Atlas and Sahara, and the resulting mix of mountain and desert terrain has made it the Hollywood of Morocco. Among the many blockbuster movies filmed on location around Taroudant are Kundun, The Sheltering Sky and Lawrence of Arabia - for which Philip Glass, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Maurice Jarre respectively provided the scores. After a superb lunch in the hotel's gardens we were left wondering if Martin Scorsese, Bernardo Bertolucci or David Lean had sat at the same table discussing the previous day's rushes. Just think, I put myself through all this hardship for a good story when I could have been back in cold and grey England writing a puff piece for Sinfini Music.


All photos (c) On An Overgrown Path 2013. My trip to Morocco was entirely self-funded. Also on Facebook and Twitter.

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