I also remember exactly where I was when I heard the news that he died. It was a very hot afternoon (high 90s) in Columbia, Maryland, where I was working my summer job as a laborer on a house framing crew. I was carrying 4’x8’ sheets of plywood up to the roof, sweating my a** off and cursing my existence, when the owner of the building company, who was, it turns out, a huge Elvis fan, drove up in his red convertible Mercedes and announced that Elvis had died and all work would immediately stop for the rest of the day in remembrance of him. I had not been an Elvis fan before that afternoon and have not been since, but I must say that I was very much a fan that afternoon. :-)
Actually, I was not a huge fan but liked several of his songs and a few of his movies. I don’t have a clue where I was when he died. I know sweating though, because I spent a 1/2 dozen summers hauling hay in the midwest. My brother and I used to put up about 15,000 bales annually on our ranch with my dad running the baler and filling the wagon with a bale-thrower.
I was at work at the Memphis & Shelby County Tax Assessor’s Office the day he died. When news of it got out, every phone in the place lit up. Newsies from all over the planet was calling for any information they could get concerning Elvis & Graceland. That was SOME day! After I got off work, I drove past Graceland. It was wall to wall humainity out there. It must have taken a half an hour to drive a half mile. I’ve never seen anything like that crowd other than a crowd at a sporting event. I’ve never been an Elvis “fan” per se, but I’ve grown to appreciate his music and singing. He did that VERY well. His Hawaii show was great. That was less than four years before he dide. That was probably the best he ever looked.
As an aside, he had a horseshoe ring on in that Hawaii show. It was huge. I have been wondering whatever became of it.