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By every measure, the ascent of the Stone Roses was a rapid and remarkable thing. It took place over the course of 12 months. At the start of 1989, they were merely a local source of buzz in Manchester, mostly overlooked by the traditional outlets for indie music in Britain. John Peel wasn’t a fan. The rock journalism had barely covered their most recent single, Elephant Stone. They were struggling to pack even a more modest London club such as Dingwalls. But by November they were massive. Their single Fools Gold had debuted on the charts at No 8 and their appearance was the big attraction on that week’s Top of the Pops – a scarcely imaginable situation for most alternative groups in the late 80s.

In hindsight, you can find any number of reasons why the Stone Roses cut such an extraordinary path, obviously drawing in a much larger and more diverse audience than typically displayed an interest in indie music at the time. They were set apart by their look – which appeared to connect them more to the expanding dance music scene – their cockily belligerent demeanor and the talent of the guitarist John Squire, openly virtuosic in a world of fuzzy aggressive guitar playing.

But there was also the undeniable truth that the Stone Roses’ rhythm section grooved in a way entirely different from anything else in British alt-rock at the time. There’s an point that the melody of Made of Stone sounded quite similar to that of Primal Scream’s early C86-era single Velocity Girl, but what the bass and drums were playing behind it really didn’t: you could dance to it in a way that you simply couldn’t to most of the songs that featured on the decks at the era’s alternative clubs. You in some way got the impression that the percussionist Alan “Reni” Wren and the bass player Gary “Mani” Mounfield had been brought up on music rather different to the standard alternative group set texts, which was completely correct: Mani was a massive fan of the Byrds’ bassist Chris Hillman but his main inspirations were “great Motown-inspired and funk”.

The fluidity of his playing was the secret sauce behind the Stone Roses’ eponymous first record: it’s Mani who propels the moment when I Am the Resurrection transitions from soulful beat into loose-limbed groove, his octave-leaping riffs that add bounce of Waterfall.

At times the ingredient wasn’t so secret. On Fools Gold, the focal point of the song isn’t really the singing or Squire’s wah-pedal-heavy guitar work, or even the breakbeat borrowed from Bobby Byrd’s 1971 single Hot Pants: it’s Mani’s writhing, driving bass. When you think of She Bangs the Drums, the first thing that springs to mind is the low-end melody.

In fact, in Mani’s opinion, when the Stone Roses went wrong artistically it was because they were not enough funky. Fools Gold’s disappointing follow-up One Love was lackluster, he suggested, because it “needed more groove, it’s a little bit rigid”. He was a strong supporter of their oft-dismissed second album, Second Coming but believed its weaknesses could have been rectified by cutting some of the overdubs of hard rock-influenced six-string work and “reverting to the rhythm”.

He likely had a point. Second Coming’s scattering of standout tracks often coincide with the instances when Mounfield was really given free rein – Daybreak, Love Spreads, the excellent Begging You – while on its more turgid songs, you can sense him metaphorically urging the band to pick up the pace. His playing on Tightrope is completely contrary to the lethargy of everything else that’s happening on the song, while on Straight to the Man he’s clearly trying to add a bit of energy into what’s otherwise just some unremarkable folk-rock – not a genre one suspects anyone was in a hurry to hear the Stone Roses attempt.

His attempts were unsuccessful: Wren and Squire departed the band following Second Coming’s launch, and the Stone Roses imploded entirely after a disastrous headlining performance at the 1996 Reading festival. But Mani’s subsequent role with Primal Scream had an remarkably galvanising effect on a band in a slump after the tepid response to 1994’s guitar-driven Give Out But Don’t Give Up. His sound became dubbier, weightier and increasingly fuzzy, but the swing that had provided the Stone Roses a point of difference was still in evidence – particularly on the laid-back funk of the 1997 single Kowalski – as was his skill to push his playing to the fore. His percussive, mesmerising bass line is certainly the highlight on the fantastic 1999 single Swastika Eyes; his playing on Kill All Hippies – similar to Swastika Eyes, a highlight of Xtrmntr, easily the finest album Primal Scream had produced since Screamadelica – is superb.

Always an affable, sociable figure – the author John Robb once observed that the Stone Roses’ hauteur towards the media was always broken if Mani “let his guard down” – he took the stage at the Stone Roses’ 2012 comeback concert at Manchester’s Heaton Park playing a personalised bass that bore the legend “Super-Yob”, the moniker of Slade’s preposterously styled and constantly grinning axeman Dave Hill. This reformation failed to translate into anything more than a long series of extremely lucrative gigs – a couple of fresh singles released by the reconstituted four-piece only demonstrated that any spark had existed in 1989 had turned out unattainable to rediscover 18 years on – and Mani discreetly announced his retirement in 2021. He’d earned his fortune and was now more concerned with angling, which additionally provided “a great reason to go to the pub”.

Maybe he felt he’d done enough: he’d certainly made an impact. The Stone Roses were influential in a range of manners. Oasis certainly observed their swaggering approach, while the 90s British music scene as a movement was informed by a aim to transcend the usual market limitations of indie rock and reach a wider general public, as the Roses had done. But their most obvious direct effect was a kind of groove-based change: in the wake of their early success, you abruptly encountered many alternative acts who aimed to make their fans move. That was Mani’s artistic raison d’être. “It’s what the rhythm section are for, aren’t they?” he once stated. “That’s what they’re for.”