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By any metric, the ascent of the Stone Roses was a rapid and remarkable phenomenon. It unfolded during a span of 12 months. At the beginning of 1989, they were merely a local cause of excitement in Manchester, mostly ignored by the traditional channels for alternative rock in Britain. Influential DJs wasn’t a fan. The music press had barely mentioned their most recent single, Elephant Stone. They were struggling to pack even a smaller London club such as Dingwalls. But by November they were massive. Their single Fools Gold had entered the charts at No 8 and their performance was the main draw on that week’s Top of the Pops – a barely imaginable situation for the majority of alternative groups in the late 80s.

In retrospect, you can find numerous causes why the Stone Roses forged a unique trajectory, clearly drawing in a far bigger and broader audience than usually displayed an interest in indie music at the time. They were set apart by their look – which appeared to connect them more to the burgeoning dance music movement – their cockily belligerent demeanor and the talent of the lead guitarist John Squire, unashamedly masterful in a scene of distorted thrashing downstrokes.

But there was also the undeniable fact that the Stone Roses’ rhythm section grooved in a way completely unlike any other act in British alternative music at the time. There’s an argument that the melody of Made of Stone sounded quite similar to that of Primal Scream’s old C86-era single Velocity Girl, but what the bass and drums were doing behind it certainly did not: you could move to it in a way that you could not to the majority of the tracks that graced the decks at the era’s indie discos. You somehow got the impression that the percussionist Alan “Reni” Wren and the bass player Gary “Mani” Mounfield had been raised on sounds quite distinct from the usual alternative group influences, which was completely correct: Mani was a huge admirer of the Byrds’ bassist Chris Hillman but his guiding lights were “great Motown-inspired and funk”.

The smoothness of his performance was the hidden ingredient behind the Stone Roses’ eponymous first record: it’s him who propels the point when I Am the Resurrection shifts from Motown stomp into free-flowing funk, his jumping lines that add bounce of Waterfall.

Sometimes the sauce was quite obvious. On Fools Gold, the focal point of the song is not the singing or Squire’s effect-laden playing, or even the drum sample taken from Bobby Byrd’s 1971 single Hot Pants: it’s Mani’s writhing, relentless bass. When you recall She Bangs the Drums, the initial element that springs to mind is the bass line.

Indeed, in Mani’s view, when the Stone Roses went wrong artistically it was because they were insufficiently funky. Fools Gold’s disappointing follow-up One Love was lackluster, he suggested, because it “needed more groove, it’s a little bit stiff”. He was a staunch supporter of their oft-dismissed second album, Second Coming but believed its flaws could have been rectified by cutting some of the layers of hard rock-influenced guitar and “reverting to the rhythm”.

He may well have had a valid argument. Second Coming’s handful of standout tracks usually coincide with the instances when Mounfield was truly allowed to let rip – Daybreak, Love Spreads, the superb Begging You – while on its increasingly turgid songs, you can sense him metaphorically willing the band to increase the tempo. His playing on Tightrope is totally at odds with the listlessness of all other elements that’s happening on the song, while on Straight to the Man he’s clearly trying to add a some pep into what’s otherwise just some nondescript country-rock – not a genre one suspects anyone was in a rush to hear the Stone Roses give a try.

His efforts were in vain: Wren and Squire departed the band following Second Coming’s release, and the Stone Roses collapsed completely after a disastrous headlining performance at the 1996 Reading festival. But Mani’s next gig with Primal Scream had an impressively energising impact on a band in a decline after the tepid reception to 1994’s guitar-driven Give Out But Don’t Give Up. His sound became more echo-laden, weightier and more fuzzy, but the swing that had given the Stone Roses a unique edge was still in evidence – especially on the low-slung rhythm of the 1997 single Kowalski – as was his skill to bring his bass work to the front. His percussive, mesmerising low-end pattern is certainly the star turn on the brilliant 1999 single Swastika Eyes; his playing on Kill All Hippies – similar to Swastika Eyes, a standout of Xtrmntr, undoubtedly the finest album Primal Scream had produced since Screamadelica – is magnificent.

Consistently an affable, sociable figure – the writer John Robb once noted that the Stone Roses’ aloofness towards the media was invariably broken if Mani “became more relaxed” – he took the stage at the Stone Roses’ 2012 comeback show at Manchester’s Heaton Park playing a personalised bass that displayed the inscription “Super-Yob”, the nickname of Slade’s preposterously coiffured and constantly smiling guitarist Dave Hill. This reunion failed to translate into anything beyond a long succession of extremely profitable gigs – a couple of fresh tracks released by the reformed four-piece only demonstrated that any magic had existed in 1989 had turned out impossible to recapture 18 years later – and Mani discreetly announced his retirement in 2021. He’d made his money and was now more concerned with angling, which additionally offered “a great excuse to go to the pub”.

Maybe he felt he’d achieved plenty: he’d definitely left a mark. The Stone Roses were influential in a variety of manners. Oasis certainly took note of their swaggering approach, while Britpop as a whole was informed by a desire to transcend the standard market limitations of alternative music and attract a more general public, as the Roses had achieved. But their clearest immediate effect was a sort of groove-based change: in the wake of their early success, you abruptly encountered many indie bands who wanted to make their audiences move. That was Mani’s artistic raison d’être. “It’s what the bass and drums are for, right?” he once averred. “That’s what they’re for.”