Replacements guitarist and Minnesota music hero Slim Dunlap dies after long illness

He was only a replacement member of the Replacements, but Bob “Slim” Dunlap built up enough goodwill and an impressive enough song catalog to influence legions of Twin Cities musicians and spark his old band’s 2013 reunion.

Praised by everyone from Bruce Springsteen to Lucinda Williams in recent years, the lanky, curly-haired guitarist and singer/songwriter died at home Wednesday after enduring years of incapacitation and countless hospital stays. He was 73.

His cause of death was related to the severe stroke he suffered in February 2012 that left him bedridden with very limited speech.

His family sent out a note that read:

“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.”

Midway through his long convalescence, Warner/Rhino Records released the Replacements’ box set “Dead Man’s Pop” in 2019. It resulted in many fans and critics giving Dunlap his due praise for energizing the legendary Minneapolis band’s final years — particularly on the 1989 album “Don’t Tell a Soul.” That’s the record that came closest to reaching the mainstream success that eluded the group as much as they eschewed it.

“Slim provided a nice yin/yang from [the other members’] bluster,” said “Don’t Tell a Soul” producer Matt Wallace. “He was more gentle and brought out a quieter side to these songs, which really was called for.”

With the steadfast care of his wife, Chrissie Dunlap, and help from a series of all-star, fundraising tribute recordings, Slim was able to spend many more days at his house in south Minneapolis than in a hospital following his stroke. The couple had recently moved into a newer home. Chrissie saw to it he was surrounded by family, friends, Twins games and a crew of musicians who regularly came over to serenade him.

“It’s so easy to love the guy. It’s a treat for all of us,” fellow Twin Cities rock vet Curtiss A said after one of his visits.

Born Aug. 14, 1951, Dunlap grew up in Plainview in southeastern Minnesota, in a district represented by his dad, Robert Dunlap, in the state Senate from 1953-1966.

After gigging off and on with Curtiss A’s bands since the mid-1970s and serving as a utility player for numerous other Twin Cities groups, Dunlap joined the Replacements as they hit the road behind 1987’s “Pleased to Meet Me,” an album bolstered by Warner Bros. Records to be their commercial breakthrough.

The band needed a versatile player and steady presence in the tumultuous wake of original guitarist Bob Stinson’s firing. Flashier and better-known guitarists were vetted for the job. Dunlap, however, added musical chops without detracting from the Replacements’ scruffy, regular-Joe Minnesotan aesthetic.

Frontman Paul Westerberg dubbed him “Slim” to avoid confusion with the group’s previous Bob, a nickname that certainly suited Dunlap’s physique.

“I wanted someone bluesier, who was hip to country music, ‘cause that’s where I envisioned the band going,” Westerberg said in Bob Mehr’s 2015 biography, “Trouble Boys: The True Story of the Replacements.”

With three school-age children at home, Dunlap’s decision to hit the road with the hard-touring and notoriously hard-partying band wasn’t easy, even though he had been working far less glamorous jobs to pay the bills. Those jobs included driving a taxi, which Bob Stinson famously often rode in; and being a janitor for First Avenue nightclub, where Chrissie Dunlap worked as a talent booker in the 1980s.

“He felt the obligation to bring home a steady paycheck, and [joining the Replacements] was a way for him to finally do that while playing music,” Chrissie recalled in a 2015 interview, laughing about how unusual the new gig was for their then-teenage daughter Emily, also a musician.

“She was really into the Replacements. So for her to have her dad suddenly playing in the band, it would be like my dad joining the Rolling Stones.”

Dunlap played guitar on the final two Replacements studio albums, ending with 1991’s “All Shook Down.” Westerberg and bassist Tommy Stinson later credited him for sparking a new spirit in the band and extending their run during their waning years.

After the breakup in 1991, Dunlap toured with Dan Baird of the Georgia Satellites, who led the first fundraising campaign on Dunlap’s behalf in the days after his stroke.

Finally, in 1993, Dunlap got his own chance to shine as a singer/songwriter.

He channeled his love for Hank Williams, Chuck Berry and vintage blues alongside the Replacements’ Stones and Faces influences on his debut album, “The Old New Me,” issued by former ‘Mats manager and Twin/Tone Records co-founder Peter Jesperson on the Medium Cool record label. A second solo album, “Times Like This,” came three years later, similarly earning cult status — especially among fellow musicians.

Springsteen publicly raved about those records numerous times, including in a 2014 interview with NPR’s Ann Powers: “I hope I get a chance to cut one of his songs,” said the Boss. “Check out the two Slim Dunlap records, because they’re just beautiful rock ‘n’ roll records. I found them to be deeply touching and emotional.”

Reissued as a double-LP set in 2015, the wryly humored songs on those albums often touched on Dunlap’s real-life experiences, from the struggles of being a musician (“The Ballad of the Opening Band,” “Ain’t No Fair (In a Rock ‘n’ Roll Love Affair)”) to growing up in a small town (“Hate This Town”).

A Los Angeles Times write-up on his first album read, “Like Westerberg, he is firmly on the side of the underdog, figuring it’s better to have a big heart than to be a big deal.”

Maybe his best song was the follow-up record’s title track, “Times Like This,” a simple but poetic nod to love conquering all. The wistful gem took on a deeper, more somber tone after his stroke and his wife’s resilient care for him:

“We know we can lose it all / But if we still have each other, then girl, that’s all there is / You can blow all the rest a kiss / It’s times like this that we learn what we really miss.”

Country-rock hero Steve Earle covered “Times Like This” for the 2013 “Songs for Slim” series, collectible 7-inch singles that also became a 28-song double album on New West Records — all to raise money for Dunlap’s health care. Other artists who covered Dunlap’s tunes for the project included Lucinda Williams, Jakob Dylan, Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, X’s John Doe, the Pixies’ Frank Black, Soul Asylum, Craig Finn of the Hold Steady, the Suburbs’ Chan Poling and the Suicide Commandos.

Most noteworthy of the “Songs for Slim” participants were the Replacements themselves. Westerberg and Tommy Stinson reunited in the studio to cut four songs, and ex-drummer Chris Mars contributed one song and the artwork for a 2012 fundraiser EP. That led to Westerberg and Stinson reforming the band with new members for sporadic tour dates around the world in 2013-15.

Dunlap could not attend the reformed Replacements' unusually focused, widely celebrated hometown show at St. Paul’s Midway Stadium on Sept. 13, 2014, but his wife believes he would have enjoyed it.

“That’s the kind of tight, steady band he always wanted them to be,” Chrissie Dunlap said. “He thought on a good night they could be the best band in the world.”

Dunlap’s songs were sung again just last weekend at the Turf Club in St. Paul, where journalist and musician Jim Walsh hosted another “Hoot for Slim” segment with guest singers as part of the annual First Avenue-promoted Tribute to the Replacements. Dunlap kept up a popular monthly gig at the Turf Club for many years, resulting in a well-received, independently released live album that came out in 2020.

Dunlap’s daughter, now Emily Boigenzahn, said late Wednesday that her dad acknowledged and was touched by all the tributes and celebrations of his songs in the years since his stroke.

“Seeing his music career be kind of reignited like that really kept him going and provided him moral support — in addition to my mom’s love, which was everything to him,” said Boigenzahn, now a Twin Cities music scene fixture herself with bands including the 99ers and RudeGirl.

There was an upside to his long survival after the stroke, she added: “He got to see his grandkids grow up, including seeing his youngest one born.”

In addition to Chrissie and Emily, Dunlap is survived by his twin children, Delia and Louie Dunlap, and their families, including six grandchildren; plus his three sisters, Mary Dunlap, Jane Hanson and Elizabeth Todd-Brown. The family said a celebration of life will be planned at a future date.