Joe Negri

Joe Negri began performing on radio at age three, playing the ukulele and singing. He joined the local musicians' union and began playing professional engagements. In the 1940s, he toured nationally and was a member of the Shep Fields Orchestra for several years. Then he entered the Army for two years.

After returning home, he performed in Pittsburgh with his brother, pianist Lonfellow Negri. He enrolled at Carnegie Mellon University, concentrated on music composition, and taught guitar to students, including Ralph Patt,[5] the inventor of major-thirds tuning.[6][7] Negri and Patt recorded in 1989.[8]

Negri spent the next twenty-two years working in television as music director. He met Fred Rogers and appeared as a regular, Handyman Negri, in the children's program Mister Rogers' Neighborhood for nearly 40 years.[1]

In 2010 he recorded an album with Michael Feinstein[1] and performed with him during the next year at the Newport Jazz Festival. Negri was the subject of a profile in the September 2010 issue of Vintage Guitar magazine.

The Joe Negri archives consist of the collection of manuscripts, recordings, memorabilia, and original hand-written scores that document his life, work and influence. The collection was donated by Negri in 1999 to the Center for American Music within the University Library System (ULS) at the University of Pittsburgh. The donation became the 1,000th collection at the ULS to have an electronically accessible finding aid (i.e., a guide that describes the contents of an archival collection and creator).[9][10][11] The archives contains correspondence, commissioned commercial musical compositions, scores, recordings and television archival footage. His donation also included his college coursework, compositions written for the River City Brass Band, television scores, commercial jingles, and film work.[10][12] Companies that commissioned work from Negri included McDonald's, Alcoa, Kaufmann's, and Westinghouse.

• A Common Sense Approach to Improvisation for Guitar (Mel Bay, 2002)

• Sethares, William A. (2011). "Alternate tuning guide". Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin; Department of Electrical Engineering. Retrieved 19 May 2012.