{"id":11291,"date":"2026-06-01T15:01:49","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T15:01:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=11291"},"modified":"2026-06-01T15:01:49","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T15:01:49","slug":"joe-negri-who-was-handyman-negri-on-mister-rogers-neighborhood-dies-at-99","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=11291","title":{"rendered":"Joe Negri, who was Handyman Negri on \u2018Mister Rogers\u2019 Neighborhood,\u2019 dies at 99"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

By Kevin Kirkland, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette<\/strong><\/p>\n

Joe Negri\u00a0couldn\u2019t hammer a nail straight, but the guitarist known as Handyman Negri on \u201cMister Rogers\u2019 Neighborhood\u201d spent nearly a century building a musical and personal legacy like no other.<\/p>\n

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\u201cHe is literally world class, even if nobody knows him outside of Pittsburgh,\u201d said\u00a0Noah Todd\u00a0of\u00a0Chicago, who enrolled at\u00a0Duquesne University\u00a0in 2017 mainly to learn guitar from Negri, who worked at the university for more than 45 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe world doesn\u2019t need more musicians. It needs more good people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Negri, 99, died Saturday of natural causes, his daughter\u00a0Lisa Negri\u00a0told the\u00a0Post-Gazette, less than two weeks before his 100th birthday. He lived in\u00a0Scott\u00a0and spent nearly his entire life performing in\u00a0Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n

In\u00a0August 2017, Negri was honored in a tribute concert as part of quarterly jazz series at St. Barnabas Health System\u2019s\u00a0Kean Theatre\u00a0in\u00a0Richland. Longtime admirer and friend\u00a0Brooks Bartlett\u00a0organized the concert.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has not lost any of his chops,\u201d Bartlett said then. \u201cI thought he deserved something like this. He is such a nice guy \u2014 no pretense at all.\u00a0Pittsburgh\u00a0is lucky to have him.\u201d<\/p>\n

His family, in a statement shared with the\u00a0Post-Gazette\u00a0on Sunday night, said Negri \u201chas always loved\u00a0Pittsburgh, and\u00a0Pittsburgh\u00a0has loved him back.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

\u201cHis career may have reached national audiences, but his heart has always been here, with the people, the musicians, and the family he loved,\u201d the family said. \u201cWe are endlessly proud of the joy he has brought to so many people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Negri was born\u00a0June 10, 1926, on\u00a0Mount Washington. He said his father, Michael, was the real handyman. The union bricklayer emigrated from the\u00a0Calabria\u00a0region of\u00a0Italy\u00a0at age 16 to escape induction into the Italian army.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wanted to escape war, but he ended up in the\u00a0U.S. Army,\u201d said his eldest son.<\/p>\n

When\u00a0Michael Negri\u00a0returned home from service, he took up his mason\u2019s trowel and his fascination with Dixieland music. Though he played the banjo, he bought his 3-year-old son a ukulele.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

\u201cI was a singer. Dad gave me the uke so I wouldn\u2019t need anyone else to rehearse,\u201d Negri said in a 2017 interview.<\/p>\n

At age 4, he performed on KDKA-AM\u2019s \u201cUncle Henry\u2019s Radio Rascals\u201d radio program. At 5, he drew the attention of local dancers Fred and\u00a0Gene Kelly\u00a0\u2014 yes, that\u00a0Gene Kelly. They asked little Joe to perform at several shows. He was a regular at\u00a0Sons of Italy\u00a0lodges and other ethnic clubs.<\/p>\n

His mother and his aunt \u2014 the former Rose and\u00a0Rene Viggiano\u00a0of Italy\u2019s\u00a0Basilicata\u00a0region \u2014 taught him the words of \u201cPardon Me Pretty Baby,\u201d \u201cMy Ideal\u201d and other songs they heard on the radio. His father helped with the music and gave him a small Epiphone guitar when he was 6.<\/p>\n

He and his younger brother, Bobby, took dance classes Downtown at the\u00a0Lou Bolton Studio. Their father bartered labor for dance lessons, then drove his sons, then known as the Rhythm Boys, to compete in talent contests at the Enright and other\u00a0Pittsburgh\u00a0theaters. With their cousin Harold \u201cMutsy\u201d Amato, they sometimes won first prize: $25.<\/p>\n

As a teenager, Negri took guitar lessons for five years with\u00a0Vic Lawrence\u00a0at Volkwein\u2019s on\u00a0Liberty Avenue, Downtown. A family friend gave him records by\u00a0Charlie Christian,\u00a0Les Paul\u00a0and\u00a0George Barnes. Christian\u2019s electric guitar was a major influence, Negri said. \u201cHe gave guitar a voice.\u201d<\/p>\n

At Volkwein\u2019s, Lawrence challenged the teenager with \u201cfancy stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAt 14, 15 years old, I\u2019m playing \u2018Flight of the\u00a0Bumble Bee.\u2019 It blew people\u2019s heads off!\u201d he said, laughing.<\/p>\n

At\u00a0Prospect Junior High, the guitar prodigy performed for his fellow students in the 250-seat auditorium. Many years later, after the old school had been turned into the Lofts of\u00a0Mount Washington, it was renamed the\u00a0Joe Negri Auditorium.<\/p>\n

He was a junior at\u00a0South Hills High School\u00a0when bandleader\u00a0Shep Fields\u00a0persuaded Negri\u2019s parents to let him take the 16-year-old guitarist on the road with his 15-piece swing orchestra in 1943. They performed in\u00a0Chicago\u00a0and at\u00a0The Strand\u00a0in\u00a0New York City, returning to\u00a0Pittsburgh\u00a0to play the\u00a0Stanley Theater\u00a0in\u00a0March 1944.<\/p>\n

The Pittsburgh Press\u00a0called him a \u201cvirtuoso on the steel guitar,\u201d and the\u00a0Pittsburgh Post-Gazette\u00a0said: \u201cYoung\u00a0Joe Negri, a\u00a0Pittsburgh\u00a0lad, easily demonstrates why he is right up there with the wizards of the electric guitar.\u201d<\/p>\n

Negri turned 18 in the summer of 1944 and was drafted into the Army. He did 18 weeks of basic training in\u00a0Macon, Ga., where a foot injury idled him. \u201cI got a 10-day furlough while my unit went to Europe,\u201d he said. \u201cI never did catch up with them. I missed the Battle of the Bulge.\u201d<\/p>\n

He ended up in\u00a0Dusseldorf, Germany, whose rivers, mills and smokestacks reminded him of\u00a0Pittsburgh. He and another soldier were given a three-day pass to Eupen,\u00a0Belgium, and went to a nightclub one night.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone there was a\u00a0Django Reinhardt\u00a0fan. A guy was playing acoustic guitar, and I sat in.\u201d<\/p>\n

An American lieutenant heard him play and approached him afterward. \u201cHe said, \u2018How would you like to join the Special Services?\u2019 I said, \u2018Would I!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Negri joined the 13th Special Services in\u00a0January 1945. A few months later, he learned his unit was heading stateside; most of the musicians had already served two years in\u00a0Europe.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy May I\u2019m coming home,\u201d Negri said. \u201cI think someone is praying for Joe.\u201d<\/p>\n

He spent several months stationed near\u00a0Newark, N.J., playing for homecoming soldiers during the day and dancers in the canteen at night. He returned to\u00a0Pittsburgh\u00a0in 1946 and formed the\u00a0Joe Negri Trio\u00a0with his brother on piano and\u00a0John Vance\u00a0on bass.<\/p>\n

The trio became the de facto house band at two clubs: the\u00a0Carnival Lounge\u00a0on\u00a0Sixth Street\u00a0and the Midway on\u00a0Penn Avenue. They also backed up national headliners who came through town, including saxophonist\u00a0Ben Webster\u00a0and trumpeters\u00a0Charlie Shavers\u00a0and\u00a0Roy Eldridge, a North Side native.<\/p>\n

In 1950, Negri met\u00a0Johnny Costa, who suggested Negri join him studying music composition at Carnegie Tech, now\u00a0Carnegie Mellon University. Negri got a night school diploma at\u00a0Allderdice High School\u00a0and enrolled under the GI Bill. His composition teacher at Carnegie Tech was Nikolai Lopatnikoff, a Russian-born composer.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe told me to write something for piano and violin. I did, and he said, \u2018You have a wonderful way with melody,\u2019\u201d Negri recalled.<\/p>\n

Majoring in composition and minoring in bass, he studied harmony, counterpoint, music history, even solfeggio, the sight reading method his father taught him as a child.<\/p>\n

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In the summer of 1953, while playing with his brother in a trio at\u00a0Conneaut Lake, Negri tripped over a pretty girl on the beach,\u00a0Joni Serafini\u00a0of\u00a0Squirrel Hill. \u201cHe literally fell on me,\u201d she said in 2017.<\/p>\n

They were married in 1954, and he began to search for a steady gig. He found one in a new medium \u2014 television. He became the leader of a jazz trio that played live five days a week on KDKA\u2019s \u201cBuzz \u2019n\u2019 Bill Show\u201d with song and dance men\u00a0Buzz Aston\u00a0and\u00a0Bill Hinds.<\/p>\n

The Negris moved to\u00a0Brookline\u00a0and had three daughters.<\/p>\n

In 1959, guitarist\u00a0Tony Mottola\u00a0persuaded him to move his young family to\u00a0New York City.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said, \u2018You can sub with some bands.\u2019 It was all very iffy,\u201d Negri said. \u201cAfter a few months, Joni and I said, \u2018Let\u2019s go back to Pittsburgh.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to writing commercial jingles, he teamed up with writer\u00a0Sy Bloom\u00a0on the song \u201cBeat \u2019Em Bucs,\u201d which played the\u00a0Pirates\u00a0all the way to a 1960 World Series victory over the New York Yankees.<\/p>\n

He worked on another\u00a0KDKA-TV\u00a0program, \u201cThe John Reed King Show,\u201d and moved over to\u00a0WTAE-TV\u00a0in 1968. His 20-year stint as the station\u2019s music director included the \u201cHank Stohl Show\u201d with\u00a0Nick Perry\u00a0and two children\u2019s shows, \u201cRicki and Copper\u201d and \u201cAdventure Time\u201d with\u00a0Paul Shannon.<\/p>\n

In the mid-\u201960s, Negri worked on a short-lived children\u2019s show with\u00a0Fred Rogers. When the\u00a0Latrobe\u00a0native created \u201cMister Rogers\u2019 Neighborhood\u201d for WQED several years later, he remembered Negri.<\/p>\n

\u201cFred said, \u2018Joe, how would you like to be Handyman Negri?\u2019\u201d the musician recalled.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said, \u2018You gotta be kidding. I can\u2019t hammer a nail straight!\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said, \u2018That\u2019s OK. It\u2019s all pretend.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

For 35 years, Negri was Handyman Negri on \u201cMister Rogers\u2019 Neighborhood.\u201d Just as Rogers had said, his lack of repair skills never hampered him in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe. But his jazzy guitar licks came in handy when he played with guests\u00a0Wynton Marsalis,\u00a0Mabel Mercer,\u00a0Tony Bennett\u00a0and\u00a0Yo-Yo Ma\u00a0and with the rest of the TV show\u2019s quartet \u2014 musical director\u00a0Johnny Costa\u00a0on piano,\u00a0Carl McVicker Jr. on bass and\u00a0Bobby Rawsthorne\u00a0on drums.<\/p>\n

Rogers, a music composition major at\u00a0Rollins College\u00a0in\u00a0Winter Park, Fla., wrote many of the songs he sang on the show. He loved that his jazz quartet tucked swinging riffs into every episode. Thanks to them, generations of children unconsciously absorbed a little soul with their public television.<\/p>\n

While doing the show, Negri continued to play local clubs and accompany headliners who came through town.\u00a0Bob Hope,\u00a0Peggy Lee\u00a0and\u00a0Michael Feinstein\u00a0all became Joe Negri fans.<\/p>\n

\u201cJoe\u2019s fluid and spontaneous ability to perfectly accompany and enhance every song I was singing made me feel as happy as I\u2019ve ever been on a concert stage,\u201d Feinstein said after performing with Negri and the\u00a0Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. The singer and guitarist later made an album together.<\/p>\n

Negri said the end of \u201cMister Rogers\u2019 Neighborhood\u201d began with the deaths of three neighbors \u2014\u00a0Don Brockett\u00a0in 1995,\u00a0Johnny Costa\u00a0in 1996 and\u00a0Bob Trow\u00a0in 1998.<\/p>\n

\u201cFred said, \u2018Before we lose anyone else, I\u2019m going to end the show.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The show\u2019s last episode aired in\u00a0August 2001. Rogers died of stomach cancer in\u00a0February 2003, at age 74. Seven years later,\u00a0Bobby Negri\u00a0died at age 81.<\/p>\n

In the 1970s, Negri began teaching jazz guitar at\u00a0Duquesne University, then expanded to the\u00a0University of Pittsburgh\u00a0and\u00a0Carnegie Mellon.<\/p>\n

He was presented with the Presidential Award for Extraordinary Service to\u00a0Duquesne University\u00a0and the Community in 2022. As the award was presented, university officials showed photos of Negri on the \u201cMister Rogers\u2019 Neighborhood\u201d set and also a video of him playing the song \u201cYou Are Special\u201d on the guitar.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m overwhelmed, honored and humbled, and I\u2019m really very happy to be here today,\u201d\u00a0Mr. Negri\u00a0said during the ceremony.<\/p>\n

In 1999,\u00a0Matt Hudson\u00a0came from his hometown in\u00a0Erie\u00a0to study guitar at Pitt. He found a mentor in Negri.<\/p>\n

When Hudson became a teacher himself at\u00a0Lane Technical High School\u00a0in\u00a0Chicago, he turned on his students to Negri\u2019s arrangements of jazz standards. He encouraged\u00a0Noah Todd\u00a0to email a video of himself playing a Negri solo to Negri.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe morning after, he responded with the most encouraging words and ideas,\u201d Todd recalled.<\/p>\n

After one lesson with Negri, Todd auditioned for Duquesne\u2019s\u00a0School of Music. He was accepted and spent one year here before transferring to another college.<\/p>\n

In 2017, Negri cut back on his teaching and performing, but he still practiced every day on his custom-made Benedetto guitar. It kept him sharp, he said, and allowed him to continue to play at a high level.<\/p>\n

\u201cJazz is not as simple as people think. It has a very complex structure,\u201d he said then.<\/p>\n

He lamented how this quintessentially American music form had fallen from favor.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes you play, and nobody\u2019s listening. They\u2019re talking at the bar, checking their phone,\u201d he said, shaking his head.<\/p>\n

But he played on, making it look easy.<\/p>\n

\u201cJoe can play something flashy, but it always takes a back seat to melody and phrasing,\u201d Hudson, his former student, said in 2017. \u201cThere\u2019s not a wasted note.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to his wife of 72 years, Negri is survived by his three daughters,\u00a0Lisa Negri\u00a0of\u00a0Detroit;\u00a0Laurie Bentz\u00a0of\u00a0Naples, Fla.; and\u00a0Gia Leven\u00a0of\u00a0Pittsburgh; and three granddaughters. He was preceded in death by a brother,\u00a0Bobby Negri, and sister,\u00a0Eleanor Barneck.<\/p>\n

Those wishing to honor Negri can make donations to St. Jude Children\u2019s\u00a0Research Hospital, a charity he loved, his family said. Funeral services were held privately.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 2026 the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Visit\u00a0www.post-gazette.com. Distributed by\u00a0Tribune Content Agency, LLC.<\/em><\/p>\n

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He died less than two weeks before his 100th birthday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11290,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-based-on-facts-either-observed-and-verified-directly-by-the-reporter-or-reported-and-verified-from-knowledgeable-sources","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nJoe Negri, who was Handyman Negri on \u2018Mister Rogers\u2019 Neighborhood,\u2019 dies at 99 - Silicon Valley Moving Post<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=11291\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Joe Negri, who was Handyman Negri on \u2018Mister Rogers\u2019 Neighborhood,\u2019 dies at 99 - 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