New Book, Concert To Celebrate Slain Levittown Musician's Life

LEVITTOWN, PA — A new biography on a renowned Levittown musician, who was murdered in 2011, will be released at a music event at Bucks County Community College on Saturday, April 23.

The Danny DeGennaro Foundation, created in 2014, will host its annual Creative Inspiration concert at the community college. The event will double as a fundraiser.

The concert will feature performances from DeGennaro’s former bandmates in his band Kingfish, his old friend and blues musician Mikey Junior, along with Hooters drummer David
Uosikkinen and sets from aspiring Bucks County musicians Laura Fiocco and Katelyn Cryan. Comedian Anita Wise will serve as the concert's MC.

DeGennaro, the namesake of the foundation, was a Levittown musician who was killed in his Crabtree Drive home on Dec. 28, 2011. He was 56 years old.

DeGennaro became known as a member of the San Fransisco, California-based rock band, Kingfish, where he sang and played guitar. The band became known for their soulful, blue-based rock music, and for the fact that Grateful Dead co-frontman, Bob Weir, was a member of the band for several years; other Dead members contributed to Kingfish songs and albums.

“There’s a whole universe of musicians out there and they all know each other,” said John Farmer, a New York Times best-selling author and former dean of law at Rutgers University. Farmer's latest book, "Way Too Fast", is a biography of DeGenarro. Farmer spent several years interviewing more than 100 people who knew the local musician to write the new book.

Farmer, who currently serves as director of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University-New Brunswick, met DeGennaro over 30 years ago in one of the late musician’s regular haunts in New Hope. Farmer, who had recently lost his wife, “was about as low as I had been in my life.”

"He was playing something that expressed the way I was feeling, but made it beautiful," Farmer
recalled. "It was a turning point in my grieving process. He had a gift for bringing out the beauty in the saddest song."

Farmer reconnected with DeGennaro in 2011 prior to his murder. After hearing of DeGennaro’s
untimely death, Farmer “was determined to do something about it.” An opinion article that was published in a Philadelphia-area publication suddenly revealed the connectedness of DeGennaro's music and personality, something Farmer found in the multitude of acquaintances he met while writing the book.

“I heard from people all over the country whose lives he had touched,” Farmer said. “It moved me to write a life story of his that would try to capture the impact he had on other people’s lives.”

Many people who were close to DeGenarro felt the pain that his murder left behind. One friend, Robert Figlo, owner of Figlo Music Publishing, LLC, recalls meeting the musician in the ninth grade at Medill Bair High.

"He was already very popular so we shook hands and were friends for life after that," Figlo told Patch in an email. "I remember going to his house many times to see if he wanted to hang out but he’d be practicing his guitar."

Figlo worked with DeGenarro in the '70s, helping get him in contact with people in the music industry.

Like many friends, Figlo was devasted to find that his longtime friend had been killed in a burglary just before New Year's in 2011.

"Even after all these years, it still pains me to think about it; such a terrible way to end his life."

Despite the pain of losing his friend, Figlo is excited about the release of Farmer's new book. "I just hope it will bring a new legion of fans to his music and maybe some sort of closure," he told Patch.

Still an active member of the music industry, Figlo hopes to have some of DeGenarro's songs covered by newer artists in an effort to solidify the impact he had on rock music.

"I believe Danny will be remembered for [being] a guy who had enormous talent but who was in some ways quite happy to keep it right here in good old Levittown, even though most everyone else believed he belonged on the big stage," Figlo told Patch. "I do miss him!"

The foundation continues to honor DeGennaro’s legacy, awarding annual scholarships to
music and art students at Bucks County Community College. The nonprofit group is working to give life to a new scholarship, the T.J. Tindall Music Scholarship.

Through its GoFundMe page, the foundation has already raised more than $6,000 of the $12,000 needed to create an endowment at Bucks County Community College to ensure the $500 annual scholarship award continues in perpetuity.

"Biographies are hard," Farmer said. "There’s always another person to talk to. It’s hard to capture, I think, the essence of somebody. It’s a very hard project, but it’s a worthy one."

Tickets for the event can be purchased online.