Joe Negri, the musician best known for his work as the guitar-playing handyman on “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” died May 30 in Pittsburgh. He was 99. Negri’s death was announced by his family.Negri and Fred Rogers first worked together in the early 1960s on a local Pittsburgh children’s TV show. From 1968 through 2001, Negri played “Handyman Negri” on the popular PBS show “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.” Negri often appeared on screen singing and playing his guitar, and eventually became the proprietor of the neighborhood music shop. In total, Negri appeared on 331 episodes of the long-running series throughout its entire run. Negri occasionally performed alongside guest stars such as Yo-Yo Ma, Tony Bennett and Wynton Marsalis.Born on June 10, 1926, in Pittsburgh, Negri began playing guitar at age 3 and performed on the radio as a child. He also worked as a professional musician as a teenager and toured nationally with bands in the 1940s before serving in the U.S. Army during World War II.
After the war, Negri returned to Pittsburgh, studied composition at Carnegie Tech (now Carnegie Mellon University), and built his life and professional reputation in the city’s jazz community, becoming a premiere guitarist. Over the years, Negri frequently appeared as a guest with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and its Pops concerts.Rogers later invited Negri to join him in a new WQED show in development that would become “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.” Negri began performing music by the show’s 13th episode, his first track being “Sometimes People Are Good,” written by Rogers. Outside his time on “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” Negri played on several albums, including Michael Feinstein’s 2010 standards album “Fly Me to the Moon.”As an educator, Negri taught jazz guitar for nearly 50 years at the University of Pittsburgh, Duquesne University and Carnegie Mellon.
