Musician Bob “Slim” Dunlap, who stabilized the Replacements between 1987-1991 following the departure of original guitarist Bob Stinson, died yesterday (Dec. 18) at the age of 73 due to complications from a massive stroke that left the Minnesota native paralyzed in 2012.
Dunlap’s recovery was grist for Replacements members Paul Westerberg, Tommy Stinson and Chris Mars to reunite under their name the first time in more than 20 years to lead the Songs for Slim benefit album. The Replacements then unexpectedly reunited for several tours between 2013-2015, during which Dunlap was replaced by guitarist Dave Minehan.
More from Spin:
Bruce Springsteen Teases 2025 Archival Releases
Native Son
2024’s Best Hip-Hop Albums by Women
Dunlap, whose father was a state senator in Minnesota, already had three children at home when he was approached by Westerberg to take over for the ailing Bob Stinson.
Referred to by Westerberg as “Slim” so as not to confuse fans with a second guitarist also named Bob, Dunlap joined in time for the touring cycle behind 1987’s Pleased to Meet Me and is prominently featured on the Replacements’ last two albums, Don’t Tell a Soul (1989) and All Shook Down (1991).
“Paul is extremely eclectic in what he listens to and what he plays,” Dunlap told SPIN in 1989 after his first studio sessions with the Replacements. “He’s really had to downplay that to a certain extent because he’s in the Replacements. I think with [Don’t Tell a Soul] he’s starting to erase the boundaries of what makes one song a Replacements song and one song not. After all, they’re both written by the same guy and played by the same band. In a way, this album is very daring because it’s virtually untouched by outside pressures like the old fans and the record company. He could’ve very easily written another Pleased to Meet Me, but he did something different.”
“They were inextricably linked from the first time Slim gave a young Bob a ride in his cab — this was long before there ever was a Replacements,” Replacements biographer Bob Mehr wrote on Facebook about the band’s two guitarists. “And then years later Slim had the unenviable task of replacing Bob in the band. But it was Bob who pushed Slim to join the group, to take his spot. The two of them were working as janitors in the fall of 1986 at First Avenue [in Minneapolis], and Bob Stinson would pester Slim about the gig, telling him he needed to play with the Replacements, miming guitar licks on his broom, showing him his old parts. That should tell you EVERYTHING about Slim Dunlap. He was the only man Bob Stinson believed worthy of taking *his* place in *his* band.”
After the Replacements broke up, Dunlap released his 1993 solo debut, The New Old Me and a 1996 follow-up, Times Like These. A live album, Thank You Dancers!, came out in 2020 nearly two decades after being put to tape at the Turf Club in St. Paul, Mn.
To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here.
