By day, Josh Sirtin is a project manager for an engineering firm and a 38-year-old divorced father of three.

But ever increasingly these days, the Huntsville native can be found on a stage somewhere in the southeast, channeling the Chairman of the Board himself through his “Tribute to Frank Sinatra” show which is drawing rave reviews.

Sirtin, in all honesty, doesn’t really look like Frank Sinatra.

But when he takes the stage, dressed in tux, with Sinatra’s trademark orange pocket kerchief in his breast pocket, with a bottle of Jack Daniels, pack of Camels and a fedora perched on a stool or piano nearby, Sirtin masterfully creates the illusion that he is Sinatra, blending Sinatra’s legendary phrasing of a lyric with some of his mannerisms and on-stage banter.

It’s important to note that what Sirtin does is not an impersonation. No one sounds like Sinatra.

There’s only one Frank Sinatra — and Sirtin knows it. Sirtin says those who attempt to sound like Sinatra often put far too much of Sinatra’s New Jersey accent into the singing, something the legend himself never did.

“When I hear people try to imitate Frank, they really put too much of an affectation in there for my taste,” Sirtin said. “I think that cheapens it, to be honest with you. I’ve seen these guys who get up there and think if you have the hat, sing with a heavy accent and take a drink, well you’ve got it. But I think it’s more nuanced than that.”

There’s a certain amount of surprise that someone performing a tribute to the legendary singer, who died in 1998, would be both so young and from Huntsville, but once you’ve learned Sirtin’s background, it becomes less so.

“I’ve always been aware of Sinatra’s music,” Sirtin said. “My grandparents had a house on Smith Lake in north central Alabama. There were speakers everywhere and that was the soundtrack that was playing. If we were out on the lake, we were listening to Oldies 106.9 out of Birmingham (106.9 abandoned the oldies format in favor of classic rock in 2001).

“The older music was always there. I listened to a lot of it with my grandfather, who still had a lot of Frank’s music and others of that era on reel to reel tapes.”

Sirtin said his family’s Huntsville roots run deep, although in speaking with him it’s difficult to detect anything resembling a southern accent. That’s by design.

“Careful thought and study,” he says of stifling the accent. “Now, if I get on the phone with my dad or uncle for more than five minutes the Alabama in me comes back real strong.”

Sirtin says that, while Frank Sinatra’s music was seemingly always present in his life, it wasn’t until he got involved in musical theatre while in high school that he began to develop a deeper appreciation.

“For me, it was the quality, the orchestrations, the lyrics,” he said when asked what drew him to that genre of music. “I was never really big into the music of my peers. If somebody got in my car, they were hearing the Great American Songbook.

“I was always drawn to the big band, swing-type stuff. It spoke to me the way nothing else really did.”

Sirtin has been singing since he was young, first in church and later in high school musicals. Performing in front of audiences was something he always enjoyed, but it wasn’t until he brought his own family on trips to Destin, Fla., that the path to his current show opened.

“There was a piano bar named Rumrunners that still exists in Baytown,” he said. “I got to be friends with a guy who played piano there. He could play anything. He’d sit down and play for four or five hours a night. It was a touristy kind of spot. Every once in a while, if it wasn’t a particularly busy night, he’d let me get up and sing a couple of songs.”

But he was married at the time, with three young kids to feed, so singing remained something he did occasionally, just for fun.

A chance meeting in 2015, however, would change that. Through that meeting — and without so much as an audition — Sirtin was afforded the opportunity to perform a set of Sinatra’s music as the opening act for an Elvis impersonator.

“I was nervous as hell,” Sirtin remembers, “but we put that show together and I was really excited about it.”

As that act grew in popularity, friends would ask Sirtin when he might venture out on his own. Ultimately, he was hired to perform solo for a retirement party at an Italian restaurant, La Famiglia, in Destin.

“The restaurant apparently took a liking to me, because they started booking me for some of their special occasions,” he said. “From there, it kind of organically grew. There was a pause during COVID, but then they brought me back for a show called ‘Black Friday with Ol’ Blue Eyes.’

That grew into once a month performances and then into every Friday night. Sirtin’s relationship with La Famiglia is into its third year now.

But the restaurant is in Destin, a beach town, and beach town means tourists. People have come in from other places around the southeast and seen Sirtin’s act, allowing La Famiglia to serve as a “springboard,” of sorts.

Hotel Legends in Biloxi, Miss., learned of Sirtin’s act from a guest who had seen him in Destin. The hotel booked Sirtin to perform in its Sapphire Supper Club, an upscale venue modeled after the elegant supper clubs of the 1940s and 1950s — tailor-made for Sirtin’s act.

During one of Sirtin’s performances at the club, Keith Crosby, the general manager of nearby Palace Casino Resort, was in attendance with his wife. Crosby asked Sirtin if he’d be interested in performing at the casino.

“A chance to break into the casino circuit? That would be huge,” Sirtin said. He is awaiting completion of renovations at the casino to set the dates.

Sirtin, who now lives in Niceville, Fla., is still working his day job, but is playing 13 dates in December alone, in Florida, Mississippi and Georgia.

“This has grown to the point where it’s really half of my income,” he said. “I never thought it would be more than just something fun to do that would make a few extra bucks.”

And the ultimate goal is to make performing his full-time gig. To that end, he has someone working on his behalf to bring the act to Las Vegas.

“I never thought it would grow to where it is now,” he said. “Ultimately, the idea is doing this kind of thing 3-4 nights a week and making a stable living at it. And to have a consistent place, or places, to perform regularly.”

Sirtin’s performing career isn’t the only thing on the upswing. He recently became engaged to longtime girlfriend Meghan Sorrell, who is his biggest fan and often responsible for photos and videos used to promote Sirtin’s act.

And he’s still an attentive father — his two sons, Paul and Joe, are now 14 and 7, respectively, while daughter Samantha is 9. Sirtin was asked what his kids think of his show.

“Meghan’s made a few videos of them singing along, even if they don’t’ realize they’re doing it,” Sirtin said. “They come to most of the Friday night shows. They even have certain songs they like and will request. As they get older, I’m sure they’ll find other things they’d rather be doing on a Friday night, but for now I think they enjoy it.”

Clearly, they’re not alone.