This is becoming an annual event, following a holiday trip to Morocco with a programme playing some of the music heard in taxi CD players, in street stalls, restaurants and out in the streets.

Having enjoyed the wisdom and calm manner of a Mercedes taxi driver called Hicham last year, we took his number and called in advance this year to ask if he could take us up to a tiny Berber village in the High Atlas, where a Swiss woman has created a magical hostel with candle light and a log fire in the dining room. As we set off from Marrakech, Hicham slipped a CD into the player and the unmistakable intro of ‘Dreamer’ by Supertramp had me crying for mercy.

Hicham calmed me down by playing The Best of Nancy Ajram for the next ninety minutes. The Lebanese singer is the most popular star of the entire Middle East and Maghreb at the moment, with countless blogs and chat-rooms discussing the latest instalment in her series of plastic surgery operations. No matter, she starts this week’s show with one of her biggest hits. [Many thanks to Sam Farah of the Middle East World Service for providing the English translation of the title.]

I confess that I didn’t hear Think of One in Morocco. The Belgian group’s brand new album was in the first packet that I opened when I got back home, but some of it was recorded in Marrakech with several local singers and musicians. ‘Gnawa Power’ is the most Moroccan-sounding track on the album, which otherwise features the voices of group leader David Bovée more than usual.

There’s a CD stall in Essaouira run by a young man called Yusuf who really knows his music, and I make a point of going to hear what he’s playing each time I visit. His taste ranges through most of Africa, and it’s normal to hear Tinariwen, Cesaria Evora, Lucky Dube and Rachid Taha all in the same hour. This time he was playing Souad Massi, whose songs sounded very clear and unique. As the best of them are.

There’s an alley in Essaouira with four restaurants all offering very similar menus, where you sit on benches and bend over your dishes set on tables as low as your knees. The best is run by an eccentric German who wears a baseball hat several sizes too big for him, so it more or less covers his entire head. His food is always good and tasted all the better when accompanied by the entire length of Anouar Brahim’s album, Astrakan Café. I’ve always liked the second of two versions of the title track, the one featuring the Turkish clarinettist Barbaros Eköse, but this time my ear was caught by another tune that also features him, Ashkabad.

When I asked Yusuf for a CD by Berber musicians, he didn’t have a great range, and this one by Ouadaden was the best of what he had, while not being quite as good as the songs I heard coming out of the houses in that village in the High Atlas.

If you have any comments, queries and corrections, please post them in the Forum (choose the 'Forum & Playlists' link on menu bar at the top) where they can spark off further reactions from other listener/readers.

The programme is available online for seven days after each first broadcast, linked from the World Service link in the menu bar at the top of this page.