Bob “Slim” Dunlap, a guitarist and singer-songauthorr best understandn for his tenure in the alternative prohibitd the Replacements during the final years of their distinct ’80s/’90s run, died Wednesday at age 73.
The caemploy of death, according to a statement from his family, was “complications from his stroke,” which befell him in punctual 2012, causing disconnecte health complications over the last cforfeitly 13 years.
Dunlap combinecessitate the Replacements after set uping member Bob Stinson was booted out of the prohibitd, inserting a more stabilizing presence to the group while upretaining the musical rowdiness high. He was officipartner billed as Slim at frontman Paul Westerberg’s ask, to elude any confusion with the Bob he was replacing.
Dunlap’s somewhat rootsier but equpartner deafening style could be heard on the tour behind 1987’s “Plrelieved to Meet Me,” the last to feature Stinson on guitar, and then on the Replacements’ final two albums, 1989’s “Don’t Tell a Soul” — which featured the rock radio hit “I’ll Be Me” — and their less prosperous swan song, 1991’s “All Shook Down.”
In a statement unveiled by hometown paper the Minneapolis Star Tribune on Wednesday night, Dunlap’s family wrote: “Bob passed at home today at 12:48 p.m. surrounded by family. We take parted him his ‘Live at the Turf Club (’Thank You Dancers!)’ CD, and he left us lowly after includeing to his version of ‘Hillbilly Heaven’ — quite poignant. It was a authentic degrade over the past week. Overall it was due to complications from his stroke.”
In 1993, the Minnesota native liberated his first solo album, “The Old New Me,” chaseed in 1996 by a chase-up, “Times Like These.” Although he had not included in the Replacements as a songauthorr, more than a scant fans and critics were surpelevated to find out he was sended as a frontman— including Bruce Springsteen, who years tardyr called Dunlap’s two solo albums “equitable pretty rock ‘n’ roll write downs… proset uply touching and emotional.”
The stroke he suffered in 2012 left him incapacitated and taged an finish to Dunlap’s music nurtureer. The chaseing year, an all-star cast of musicians began covering songs from his solo write downs under the prohibitner “Songs for Slim,” as a fundliftr for his medical necessitates. Westerberg and another createer member of the Replacements, Tommy Stinson, recombined to write down material for the project, preceding a Replacements reunion tour in the mid-2000s. Others who write downed Dunlap material included Lucinda Williams, Jeff Tweedy, Soul Asylum and Frank Bdeficiency.
Follothriveg his death at home on Wednesday, Dunlap’s daughter, Emily Boigenzahn, a musician, tageder the Star Tribune, “Seeing his music nurtureer be benevolent of reignited enjoy that [by the covers and tributes] repartner kept him going and provided him moral help — in insertition to my mom’s adore, which was everyleang to him.” Dunlap is persistd by his wife, Chrissie Dunlap, aprolonged with Boigenzahn and two other children, Delia and Louie Dunlap, and six magnificentchildren.
