Slim Dunlap, Guitarist for the Replacements, Dead at 73
Bob “Slim” Dunlap, guitarist for ’80s alternative rock stalwarts the Replacements, died Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2024, from complications due to a stroke he suffered in 2012. He was 73.
In a statement released to The Minnesota Star Tribune, his family said that “Bob passed at home today at 12:48 p.m. surrounded by family. We played him his ‘Live at the Turf Club (’Thank You Dancers!)’ CD, and he left us shortly after listening to his version of ‘Hillbilly Heaven’ — quite poignant. It was a natural decline over the past week. Overall it was due to complications from his stroke.”
Born in 1951 in Plainview, Minnesota, Dunlap played in a number of local bands and worked as a janitor at legendary Minneapolis club First Avenue, a venue frequently played by the Replacements (it was also a stomping ground for Prince, and can be seen in the 1984 movie Purple Rain).
Clayton Call/Redferns
Known affectionately as “the replacement Replacement,” Dunlap joined the band in 1987, after founding guitarist Bob Stinson was kicked out of the band. He was initially hesitant to join, fearing the toll that the band’s touring schedule would take on his family, especially his three young children. But his wife, Chrissie (who also worked at First Avenue), and Replacements frontman Paul Westerberg eventually convinced him to take the gig. Westerberg also asked that he go by the nickname “Slim” rather than his real first name, Bob, to avoid confusion with Stinson.
Dunlap’s playing can be heard on the final two Replacements albums, 1989’s Don’t Tell a Soul and 1991’s All Shook Down. After the Replacements split up in mid-1991, he released two solo albums, 1993’s The New Old Me and 1996’s Times Like These.
But a 2012 stroke left him mostly paralyzed, able to move only his head. In 2013, a tribute album called Songs for Slim was released. It featured artists including Jeff Tweedy of Wilco, Lucinda Williams, Steve Earle, Frank Black of the Pixies, and Paul Westerbeg and Tommy Stinson of the Replacements covering Dunlap’s solo songs, and raised money for Dunlap’s medical treatment.
When the Replacements reunited for some live dates in 2014, they had Dunlap’s blessing to perform with a new guitarist. In 2023, his wife, Chrissie Dunlap, said that her husband had been in and out of the hospital “over one hundred times.”
He is survived by Chrissie, three children, and six grandchildren. His name is painted on the outside of First Avenue, alongside other outstanding musicians who played the club
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