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On a late spring day during the Dwight Eisenhower administration, one of the biggest names in show business came to Seattle and played a concert on a Sunday evening. It turned out to be a show that鈥檚 been echoing in some parts of the music world ever since.

Legendary performer Frank Sinatra played for thousands of vigorously clapping fans at what鈥檚 now McCaw Hall on June 9, 1957. It was part of an unusual tour of western cities that stretched out over three consecutive weekends that month, with stops in Albuquerque, New Mexico; Denver; El Paso, Texas; Vancouver, British Columbia; Portland, Oregon; Seattle and three cities in California: San Jose, San Francisco and Sacramento.

Incredibly, Sinatra and his more than two-dozen musicians would play an afternoon show in one city, and, later the same day, an evening show in a different town hundreds of miles away. The band made these quick late afternoon hops via chartered plane between Albuquerque and Denver; San Jose and Salt Lake City; Portland and Seattle; and San Francisco and Sacramento.

The Seattle, Vancouver, and Portland shows were promoted by the legendary team of Zollie Volchok and Jack Engerman, whose Northwest Releasing Company was a force on the local entertainment scene for much of the 1950s and 1960s.

Ed O鈥橞rien, a longtime Sinatra scholar, says that for Sinatra in the late 1950s, taking to the road someplace other than Vegas, New York or international capitals was rare.

鈥淵ou just couldn’t see him,鈥� O鈥橞rien said. 鈥淎nd he was recording [albums] at the same time, so the idea of doing concert tours was not something that Sinatra did at all, so it was unusual. Very unusual.鈥�

But the most unusual thing about the 1957 Seattle show was that it was . Bootleg tapes of the show circulated among collectors as early as the 1960s, and a CD was even released back in the 1990s.

O鈥橞rien, who wrote the liner notes for the 1995 CD, says that Sinatra the star was at the top of his game in 1957.

鈥淎t that particular moment in his career, Sinatra was the biggest selling album artist in the world,鈥� O鈥橞rien said. 鈥淗e had three albums in the Billboard Top 100 that week when he played Seattle, and he was the number five top-drawing film stars in the box office.鈥�

But while Sinatra was batting 1,000 artistically when he played Seattle, his personal life was full of major league troubles. According to best-selling author and Sinatra biographer , the spring of 1957 was an especially challenging season for Ol鈥� Blue Eyes.

“He was the most famous celebrity in the world, he was the most famous entertainer in the world, he was a multimedia star, but he was, at the center of his soul, a boiling pit of insecurities,鈥� Kaplan said.

“He was deeply worried during the recording of [an] album in the spring of 1957 that he was losing his voice,鈥� Kaplan said.

“He was feeling sad for a few reasons in 1957,鈥� Kaplan said. 鈥淗is great friend and idol Humphrey Bogart had died in January. And by early July, [Sinatra鈥檚 estranged wife Ava Gardner] would finally divorce him. So he knew that was in process, and I think that was also another great source of sadness for him.鈥�

Kaplan also says that 41-year old Sinatra was carrying on at least two affairs, with 24-year old actress Kim Novak; and with Bogart鈥檚 widow, 32-year old Lauren Bacall.

“I think (Bacall) was in the audience in Seattle that night, and I think it gave him a certain amount of confidence,鈥� Kaplan said.

As an artist known for carefully produced, lush and meticulous studio releases, Sinatra isn鈥檛 exactly at his technical best in the Seattle recording, including one particularly painful moment when he can鈥檛 hit the high notes in 鈥淢y Funny Valentine.鈥�

“To hear his voice just give out is like watching a fall off the high wire,鈥� said James Kaplan. 鈥淚t is heartbreaking and unbelievable. His voice gives out.鈥�

On the recording, Sinatra acknowledges the blown notes before beginning the next song. 鈥淚 think I got a shot glass stuffed in my throat,鈥� he tells the Civic Auditorium audience.

Sinatra also pauses between songs to mention that it鈥檚 been more than 20 years since he鈥檇 been in Seattle. He tells the crowd it was 1935 when he鈥檇 first come through town on a tour as part of the radio program. The group was part of a revue that played for nearly a week at the , where the main entrance to the Fairmont Olympic Hotel now stands.

Sinatra may not be in finest form throughout the show, but Ed O鈥橞rien says that the Seattle recording has some terrific moments鈥攏otably, moving renditions of 鈥淭he Lady is a Tramp鈥� and 鈥淥ne For My Baby鈥濃�攁s well as real historic value.

鈥淲hat you have there is you have a wonderful artifact of the live Sinatra in 1957 in front of an audience in an auditorium, a large auditorium and that’s what he did that whole tour,鈥� O鈥橞rien said.

鈥淚t really does define who he was at the time.鈥�

The recording was made on location by Wally Heider, a legendary Los Angeles audio engineer in those years who also taped at least one more show on the tour. Sinatra apparently gave the rights to the tapes to Heider. When Heider died, Ed O鈥橞rien says that a man named Ed Burke purchased the rights to the Seattle tape from Heider鈥檚 widow and then released it on CD.

Why, exactly, the Seattle show was recorded has never really been clear. Ed O鈥橞rien says it鈥檚 unlikely the recordings were ever meant to be shared publicly; he says Sinatra was too much of a perfectionist. It also doesn鈥檛 seem as if Sinatra ever reviewed the recordings to glean insight for improving future performances.

James Kaplan and Ed O鈥橞rien agree that the tour probably didn鈥檛 make any money. Expenses were high, and ticket sales weren鈥檛 uniformly great. Ironically, impetus for the western tour was supposedly a need to pay back the jilted promoter of an overseas tour that Sinatra had abruptly canceled earlier in 1957.

鈥淭he tour wasn’t a success at all. It was a bomb, an absolute bomb,鈥� said O鈥橞rien. Ticket sales were soft in many locations, O鈥橞rien says, because Sinatra wasn鈥檛 yet a good fit for the western U.S. cities on the tour. 鈥淪inatra was really urban America and, I think, much more East Coast.鈥� However, at least one show at in Vancouver, BC did sell out all 7,000 tickets.

Another factor in the soft ticket sales may have been that Sinatra鈥檚 core audience in 1957 got more at home from his famously intimate of that era than they could ever expect from a live concert in public. Either way, the concert industry was changing, and everything was about to get all shook up by Elvis Presley (who would famously sell out later that summer), another show that happened to be promoted by Volchok and Engerman.

It鈥檚 unknown how many tickets were sold for Sinatra鈥檚 1957 Seattle show, but it would be many years until he played here again. Times had changed drastically by April 1975 when he appeared at the Seattle Center Arena. Sinatra had grown in stature as a performer, had retired briefly, and then become more adept at playing giant lucrative venues and often selling them out.

Sinatra returned again to the Northwest and played the Tacoma Dome in April 1986, and then the Seattle Center Coliseum (now known as KeyArena) along with Sammy Davis and Dean Martin in March 1988. Sinatra鈥檚 final appearance in the area was at the Puyallup Fair in September 1993 along with Shirley MacLaine. Sinatra died in 1998.

Ed O鈥橞rien says that, to a certain point, Sinatra got better with age, but that the culture simply moved beyond what he was offering. The Seattle recording, then, offers a rare local glimpse into the heart of a global giant from a much different era.

鈥淎 perfect world for Frank would’ve been if he’d been able to maintain a record-buying audience that still loved , and , and and . He would’ve been a very happy man,鈥� said O鈥橞rien. 鈥淏ut unfortunately that just wasn’t true.鈥�

Those 16,000 screaming Elvis fans at Sick鈥檚 Stadium would likely have heartily agreed.

Editors’ note: This piece originally was published on June 8, 2016. It has been updated and republished since then.

You can hear Feliks Banel every Wednesday and Friday morning on Seattle’s Morning News with Dave Ross and Colleen O’Brien. Read more from Feliks here and subscribe to The Resident Historian Podcast here. If you have a story idea or a question about Northwest history, please email Feliks. You can also follow Feliks .