By Sally (Tressler) Connolly
January 25th, 2025
I was surprised how profoundly the Bob Dylan movie, “A Complete Unknown” hit me…of course I know a lot of Bob Dylan’s music and influence, but it was the incredible acting, the NYC & Newport settings, and the inclusion & depictions of Woodie Guthrie & Pete Seeger that really brought the movie home for me.
You see, my dad, Will Tressler, a 50-year resident of Easton prior to his passing in January of 2012, actually played some shows alongside Pete Seeger. They kept in correspondence with one another over the years, and Pete even came to some of the beloved summer hootenannies at our barn and property in Easton, as recently as a few years prior to his passing in 2014 at the ripe old age of 94.
The “Tressler Barn” still bears the mark of those early Greenwich Village folk club movie scenes— red & white checkered tablecloths, old folk music posters & photos plastering the walls, basket-covered Chianti bottles, and colorful hanging light fixtures (now stained glass having replaced dilapidated collapsible paper & fringe).
My dad even had the exact same folding chairs that were shown in the closing movie scene as they packed up from the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. The movie sets vividly connected the dots of my younger life…
Pete Seeger was an icon in and around the folk world and my dad looked up to him so dearly as Pete (& my dad) championed each new cause with passion. He was inspired by Pete’s ability to simultaneously challenge and unify.
I would be lying if I said my dad loved ALL of Dylan’s work; he respected his lyricism as did Seeger, but perhaps, also harbored some of the fear of change that truly came to light in the “electrification of folk” scene.
With that said, “A Complete Unknown” helped me to know the origins of my dad’s influences as painted on the big screen. My father would have been in his early 30s then, witnessing countless world changes from the 1950s into the 1960s…yet he found solace and expression in folk music and traditionalism like many others during that time.
Even though I wasn’t around back then (I arrived on the scene in 1977), I felt a nostalgia and familiarity while watching the movie given the fact that folk music was always such an integral part of life for me, my dad, my mom Katie and my brother Dan.
Our wall of vinyl included Seeger, Dylan, Baez, Mitchell, Odetta, Cash, and hundreds of others mentioned in the movie, in the folk genre & then some.
I’m including some photos of the poster of Pete and my dad performing together, my mom & dad back in the 70s, my dad & Pete Seeger when he visited our house when Pete was close to 90 years old, as well as some correspondence to my dad that he hung proudly on the wall of our home.
I also located one letter online from Pete to Bob Dylan citing the “infamous” and historical 1965 Newport Folk Festival performance because of the insight it adds to the movie scene and various accounts.
Pete always had his special signature!! If you have any interest whatsoever in the foundations of music as we know it today, I urge you to take time out of your day to be transported into “A Complete Unknown.” But now you also know that good old Easton, CT was known to Pete Seeger, one of folk’s greatest…Far out, man.
Written with love and respect to two souls who departed us in the month of January: my father, Will Tressler who passed away January 2, 2012, and to Pete Seeger, who passed away January 27, 2014.
The Cultural Easton 