Bob “Slim” Dunlap, former guitarist for Minneapolis rock heroes the Replacements, has died. Dunlap suffered a stroke in 2012, and he never fully recovered, dealing with limited speech and mobility for the rest of his life. The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports that Dunlap died at home in Minneapolis on Wednesday. He was 73.

In a statement, Dunlap’s family said:

Bob passed at home today at 12:48PM 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.

Bob Dunlap was born in Plainview, Minnesota, and his father represented his area in the Minnesota State Senate. Dunlap started playing guitar as a kid, and he played in bands with Minneapolis musician Curtiss A in the mid-’70s. For years, Dunlap was a peripheral figure in the Twin Cities music scene, and he became known as a gifted, reliable guitarist. He also worked as a cabdriver and as a janitor at the famous Minneapolis nightclub First Avenue, which is where he met his wife Chrissie.

In 1987, the Replacements kicked founding guitarist Bob Stinson out of the band. This was a chaotic time for the group. Stinson had effectively founded the Replacements, and his younger brother Tommy was still in the band after he was ejected. But Stinson struggled with substance abuse even more than the other Replacements, and those struggles led to his 1995 death at the age of 35. Frontman Paul Westerberg recruited Bob Dunlap to replace Bob Stinson in the Replacements, and he gave Dunlap the Slim nickname — partly to distinguish him from the previous Bob and partly to lend him some mystique.

In Dunlap, the Replacements found a musician who knew how to draw on the country and blues that Paul Westerberg was coming to love. The band never stopped operating as a rolling circus, and Dunlap could keep up with them while hitting his marks and lending them some stability. Dunlap was older than his bandmates and married, with three kids at home, so it was an adjustment to hit the road with the Replacements. (His daughter was a big fan.) He made it work. Dunlap joined the Replacements when they were touring behind the 1987 album Pleased To Meet Me, and he stuck with them through 1989’s Don’t Tell A Soul and 1990’s All Shook Down. But the Replacements never found the commercial breakthrough that they wanted, and they broke up in 1991.

After the Replacements ended, Slim Dunlap toured with the Georgia Satellites’ Dan Baird, and he released his 1993 solo debut The Old New Me, pictured above, on former Replacements manager Peter Jesperson’s Medium Cool label. The Old New Me and Dunlap’s 1996 follow-up Times Like This weren’t big sellers, but Dunlap’ fellow musicians appreciated his old-school roots-rock approach. Bruce Springsteen, in particular, was a vocal fan.

When Dunlap suffered his stroke, it helped spur his former bandmates to reunite. Paul Westerberg and Tommy Stinson reunited to record the 2013 EP Songs For Slim, released as a benefit to cover Dunlap’s medical expenses. Former Replacements drummer Chris Mars did the cover art. The EP’s first two tracks were covers of Dunlap’s solo songs. A 2013 benefit compilation, also called Songs For Slim, featured covers of Dunlap’s songs from artists like Steve Earle, Jeff Tweedy, Lucinda Williams, Craig Finn, Jakob Dylan, Frank Black, Patterson Hood, and Soul Asylum. In 2020, Dunlap released Thank You Dancers!, a live album that was recorded in 2002, and that’s what he was listening to when he passed away.

Below, check out some of Slim Dunlap’s work.