Marvin Sutton

Distillation items from Marvin "Popcorn" Sutton, (probably the most famous black distiller in history) which the Museum of the Appalachians in Norris , Tennessee removed in the 1990s and which were later installed again at the former place of work of Sutton.

Marvin "Popcorn" Sutton (* 5. October 1946 ; † 16th March 2009 in Parrot Ville ) was a noted American bootleggers from the Appalachians . He gained worldwide fame through his participation in the documentary This is the Last Dam Run of Likker I'll Ever Make , which later became the basis of the documentary The Last One . Excerpts from this film were used for the Moonshiners docutainment series .

Life

Sutton comes from the Maggie Valley in North Carolina . Little is known about his life prior to his bootlegging career. Its nickname popcorn dates back to the 1960s or 1970s. At that time he damaged a popcorn machine in a bar with a billiard cue .

Sutton produced and smuggled dark liquor in Tennessee and North Carolina for many years. Mostly he escaped the law enforcement authorities. In 1974, 1981 and 1985 he was sentenced to suspended sentences for evading alcohol taxes, possessing illegal alcohol and using weapons .

In 1999, Sutton published the autobiography Me and My Likker , which also contained instructions on how to blacklist. Around this time he also produced a self-made VHS video. He had his first television appearance in the documentary Mountain Talk by Neal Hutchenson from 2002. In the same year, the film This is the Last Dam Run of Likker I'll Ever Make , which made him known to a wider audience. The film became very popular very quickly and achieved a kind of cult status. This made television producers aware of Sutton. The television documentary The Last One was produced from the raw material of This is the Last Dam Run of Likker Ill Ever Make . This was released in 2008 and received the Southeast Emmy Award . This material in turn was used for the Discovery Channel docutainment series Moonshiners from 2011 to 2012. Sutton was a subject in the 2007 Documentary Hillbilly: The Real Story on the History Channel.

Sutton, whose father and grandfather had been moonshineers , embodied the dying tradition of moonshining , the illegal alcohol-making that some historians consider a legitimate part of local culture. In 2007, firefighters discovered 650 gallons of untaxed alcohol while putting out a fire on his property, which again led to a suspended sentence. While still on probation, Sutton told an undercover agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that he had stored 900 gallons of illegal alcohol ready for sale. As a result, on January 26, 2009, he was sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment without parole for the illegal production of potable alcohol and unauthorized possession of weapons. The then 62-year-old Sutton had already been diagnosed with cancer at that time. For this reason he applied to the responsible judge Ronnie Greer to be allowed to serve the sentence under house arrest. In addition, various petitions were submitted with the aim of shortening or changing the sentence. These requests were all unsuccessful.

To avoid jail, Sutton committed 16 March 2009 suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning . He should have started his sentence a few days later. He was initially buried without a public memorial service in Mt. Sterling, North Carolina. On October 24, 2009, he was reburied at his home in Parrotsville, Tennessee. A public memorial service took place there with great sympathy from the population, especially because the well-known country singer Hank Williams Jr. Sutton paid his last respects. The body was transported in a horse-drawn carriage when it was reburied. The burial itself took place in the immediate family circle. The tombstone at his current resting place bears the inscription he chose: "Popcorn Said Fuck You".

Sutton left behind his wife, Pam Sutton.

Posthumous honors

Several musicians have dedicated songs to Sutton and a whiskey brand is named after him. Because of the presentation of the bottles, there was a legal dispute with the spirits manufacturer Jack Daniel’s .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ photo
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Duncan Mansfield: Widow: Moonshiner took his life to avoid prison . In: San Francisco Chronicle , March 19, 2009. Retrieved March 21, 2009.  ( Page no longer available , search web archives ) 
3. ↑ ^{a b} Stephen Miller: Legendary Tennessee Moonshiner Plied His Trade to the End . In: The Wall Street Journal , March 20, 2009. Retrieved March 21, 2009. 
4. ↑ Emily Stroud: He Put the Dirty in Dirty South: Popcorn Sutton, Legendary Moonshiner RIP . In: WBIR-TV , March 17th, 2009. Archived from the original on January 11th, 2012 Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Retrieved March 21, 2009.  
5. ↑ Me and My Likker at amazon.com . Retrieved March 22, 2009.
6. ↑ IMDb
7. ↑ The Last One ( Memento of the original from November 24, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. - Sucker Punch Pictures website 
8. ↑ IMDb
9. ↑ http://ncsu.edu/project/nsaudiovideo/pdf/bulletin-2009-0701.pdf
10. ^ Ford, D'Lyn: Golden Moment: Bulletin: NC State University . Archived from the original on October 27, 2014. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved November 10, 2014. 
11. ↑ Famed moonshiner gets 18 months . In: Times-News , January 26, 2009. Retrieved March 29, 2009. 
12. ↑ Cocks and Hounds
13. ↑ Matheny, Jim, " Ars Longa, Vita Brevis - underwatergunfight: Marvin" Popcorn "Sutton ... ", October 25, 2009.
14. ↑ [1]
15. ↑ Amazon.de
16. ↑ Hackett, Vernell, " Hank Williams Jr. Gets Into the Moonshine Business, " The Boot, Nov. 11, 2010
17. ↑ http://news.yahoo.com/jack-daniels-legal-fight-small-distiller-151734616.html