In Memoriam: Slim Dunlap, who was a lot more than the replacement Replacement (1951- 2024)

The first of three successive remembrances of three important rock ‘n’ roll figures, who all died within days of one another last month.

Robert Bruce “Slim” Dunlap (1951- 2024). (pic: Tony Nelson)

I am wont to grouse now and again about how I don’t want The ‘Stack to become the obituary section. Yet there are days, weeks—oh, whole MONTHS—where it feels like the county morgue around here. It’s because we’re all getting older, and it ain’t just parts of our record collections and bookshelves that are dying, but those we actually know.

And then you have a week where you get a mix of all the above, and you can’t help but feel like you’re in one of those fin-de-siècle Westerns, where the last gunfighters hear one of their rapidly-shrinking number has just taken his final bullet, and they gather in a saloon, nod at one another, and hoist shot after shot, mourning the passing of both a colleague and a way of life.

So, yeah. In Column A, we have Replacements guitarist Slim Dunlap, dead at 73 on December 18. I didn’t know him, but damn if I didn’t love some records he was on. In Column B, a pair of friends who had an influence on me made their exits within days. Stanley Booth, the best writer ever on Southern musical idioms and author of the single greatest book about The Rolling Stones, died in Memphis the day after Slim. He was nine years Slim’s senior. And Marc Campbell—writer and performer of the ‘80s New Wave hit “88 Lines About 44 Women”, a ‘70s punk pioneer in Colorado with his band The Ravers (who morphed into “88 Lines” band The Nails in NYC), an inspiration to a teenage Jello Biafra and contributor to the crucial Dangerous Minds website—died two days after Stanley here in Austin, where I got to know him. He was the same age as Slim.

I was considering paying homage to all three in one long essay, for the sake of not turning The ‘Stack into an obituary section, as I groused above. But goddammit, if that wouldn’t have made this a 3500 word post! Bless my heart! Ain’t a one of ya’re gonna sit through THAT! And as distinguished as all three of these men were in their endeavors, it would be a supreme disservice to not give each their individual and full due, all because they had the misfortune of dying within days of one another. So, let’s commence a series of three successive remembrances of each of these gents, beginning with the replacement Replacement, who was a whole lot more than that….

“You’re better off buying lottery tickets than trying to make it in the music business,” Robert Bruce “Slim” Dunlap told the Los Angeles Times whilst promoting his first solo album, 1993’s The Old New Me. "I'm not a person who’s made or broken by (my) status in the business. That’s a big joke, because all the wrong people make it.” His conclusion was actually delivered in his previous paragraph, as he declared his love of “the little eccentrics out there who get lost in the shuffle.”

This was Slim Dunlap incarnate—deeply wise, quietly skeptical of glitz, as fond of rockin’ underdogs as the rest of The Replacements. He joined the band as Bob Stinson’s handpicked successor, the chaotic guitar ninja whose shadow loomed large. Paul Westerberg renamed him “Slim” to avoid confusion with the destructively charismatic Stinson (with whom Dunlap worked as a janitor). He wound up the calm eye in the hurricane that was The ‘Mats. Pitchfork’s description of his guitar work—“versatile, bluesy, and (dependable)”—might as well have been about the man himself.

“I wanted someone bluesier, who was hip to country music, ‘cause that’s where I envisioned the band going,” Westerberg told ‘Mats biographer Bob Mehr in his 2015 book, Trouble Boys: The True Story of the Replacements. (And is it just me, or are there an awful lot of “Bobs” congregating around The ‘Mats?!)

“Compared to Stinson’s more wild style,” the Pitchfork obit continued, “Dunlap played with a gentle, considered approach to the guitar, which not only added depth to the band’s uptempo numbers, but also brought wistful introspection to their quieter songs.”

There were likely several reasons for this. For one thing, Dunlap was nearly ten years older than Westerberg. He was born in Plainview, Minnesota in 1951, son of state Senator Robert Dunlap. He also had a background not only backing Minneapolis rocker Curtiss A for an eternity, but being the Twin Cities’ favorite utility musician. “I played in every little band I could play in, every band that would have me,” he recalled in that ‘93 Times profile. “Slowly but surely, I got this reputation as a guy who could play anything. One night you’d see me play bluegrass in a little pizza shop, the next night it would be hard rock.”

As The ‘Mats marauded across the continent with their new guitarist, he not only steadied his bandmates with his hard-won wisdom, but other young musicians. Northwestern power-poppers The Posies recalled supporting The Replacements at a May 1989 Vancouver gig: “Our first ever show in Canada,” they shared on Instagram. “Suddenly, we were all legal drinking age and given quite a few potent Kokanee beers.” After one Posie lost his battle with those Kokanees, puking behind the Commodore Ballroom, Slim patted him on the back and said, “Don’t worry, son... one day you’ll learn how to drink!"

Rock ‘n’ roll’s core essence is wild, rebellious, and chaotic. Slim’s maturity and grounded nature stood in contrast to that ethos, but that’s exactly what made him so remarkable. He brought a kind of wisdom and craftsmanship to the table without stripping away the grit or the fire. Perhaps that didn’t come across in the two Replacements LPs he played on, which admittedly felt lightweight in the wake of the raucous swathe cut by the Bob Stinson lineup. But the acoustic guitars and clean electric tones marking Don’t Tell A Soul and All Shook Down were jettisoned onstage, where The Replacements continued to not give a shit better than any band on the planet, albeit with a little more control than they once exhibited. Nowhere is this more evident than in this clip from the 1989 edition of the short-lived International Rock Awards, where they played “Talent Show” with all the raucousness it deserved.

That tension between his grown folks’ perspective and rock ‘n’ roll’s natural unpredictability is what elevated Slim’s own work, once he finally went solo. He briefly toured as Dan Baird’s guitarist for about a year after The Replacements sputtered to an end onstage in Chicago, a few months before “Smells Like Teen Spirit” hit. Then he finally struck out on his own. The Old New Me and its 1996 follow up Times Like This were the best of any ‘Mats solo albums, just by being everything you’d hope for from Keith Richards and Ron Wood’s non-Stones work. This was rock ‘n’ roll as it should be—unsanitized, unpolished, but also honest and fully aware of its place in the world. His songwriting proved as incredible as Westerberg’s, tiny reflections of life, heartbreak, perseverance and joy, set to some deliciously raunchy guitar tones. “Check out the two Slim Dunlap records, because they’re just beautiful rock ‘n’ roll records,” Bruce Springsteen informed NPR in 2014. “I found them to be deeply touching and emotional,” he continued, adding his hope to record a Slim original sometime.

Bruce spoke those words two years after Slim suffered a stroke that left him bedridden for the rest of his days. Artists all over the map rallied for him, recording a series of Songs For Slim benefit singles, including Jeff Tweedy of Wilco, Soul Asylum, X’s John Doe, the Pixies’ Frank Black, Lucinda Williams, Craig Finn of the Hold Steady, Steve Earle, and more. Among the standout contributors to the project were The Replacements themselves. Westerberg and Tommy Stinson reunited in the studio to record four tracks, while former drummer Chris Mars added a song and provided artwork for their own Songs For Slim EP. This effort ultimately paved the way for Westerberg and Stinson to revive the band with a new lineup, touring sporadically across the globe from 2013 to 2015.

The Replacements played a storming homecoming gig at St. Paul’s Midway Stadium on September 13, 2014. Sadly, a bedridden Slim Dunlap could only attend in spirit. His wife Chrissie Dunlap felt certain he would have been cheering the loudest.

“That’s the kind of tight, steady band he always wanted them to be,” Chrissie told The Minnesota Star-Tribune last month. “He thought on a good night they could be the best band in the world.”

They were, Slim. And you encouraged it. Your own work was every bit their equal, and we will now no longer enjoy those reckless-yet-grown-up songs and guitar playing of yours, except on record. That doesn’t seem right. We’re all the worse for it. Thank you for having been Slim Dunlap. We didn’t know we needed you, until we met you.

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Tomorrow: Stanley Booth

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