Hutcheson deftly navigates the cultural concerns surrounding Sutton in his 240-page work, which seems to be a cross between a beautifully designed coffee table book and a biography backdropped by scads of context and local color that ensure the stories about Popcorn Sutton will continue - just as long as water runs downhill. This I’m gonna make today got four damn fights to a pint.”īut that identity is heavily mythologized and riddled with contradiction - particularly in how some Appalachians are simultaneously revolted by the popular stereotypes embodied in Sutton but respect the iconic ideal of the isolated, independent mountaineers of old. “I’ve made the fightin’ kind, the lovin’ kind, the cryin’ kind. “I’ve made all kinds of liquor in my time,” Sutton told Hutcheson in his 2002 film, “This is the Last Dam Run of Likker I’ll Ever Make.” It became, to an extent, Sutton’s entire identity. “I know much better now.”Įventually, Hutcheson met up with Sutton, who was raised in a region where moonshining was an ancient craft practiced by learned masters. I thought maybe they’re buying something from the liquor store and putting it in a jar,” said Hutcheson. In fact, I didn’t even trust that it was real. I didn’t really know people were still making it. The first time I went, he wasn’t there, but there were people minding the shop and I was with a couple of grad students and the people at the shop there sold us a jar of moonshine. “Eventually I found him, he was running a little junk shop at the curve of the road heading out of Maggie Valley towards Cherokee. Neal Hutcheson photoīorn in Maggie Valley in 1946, Marvin “Popcorn” Sutton earned his nickname during a bar fight with a faulty popcorn machine, and it stuck to him like a burr on overalls. Popcorn Sutton (left) is pictured with his longtime still hand JB Rader. “I can remember passing through little towns and how they looked different from where I grew up and thinking, who lives here? What are their lives like? It was just kind of a passing thought so it’s kind of funny that I went so deep in that direction later in life.”ĭavid Williamson was removed from his position as Planning Board Chairman for the Town of… “I used to backpack all the time when I was growing up and I loved Western North Carolina, but I didn’t know anything about the people or culture. “I really found my footing in Appalachia making documentary films there and found my own voice, so I’ve specialized in cultural topics, particularly in communities that are - well, every community is experiencing change, but I’ve focused on cultural change, I guess you would say.”Īn Emmy award-winning documentarian, Hutcheson comes from the perspective of an explorer, not only of culture but also of the elements that make up culture: the geography, the language, the music, the people. “I studied film and found my footing making documentary films,” said Neal Hutcheson, a Chapel Hill native and author of The Moonshiner Popcorn Sutton (Reliable Archetype, Raleigh, 2021).