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By any measure, the rise of the Stone Roses was a rapid and extraordinary phenomenon. It took place over the course of one year. At the beginning of 1989, they were merely a local cause of excitement in Manchester, largely overlooked by the traditional channels for indie music in Britain. Influential DJs wasn’t a fan. The music press had hardly covered their most recent single, Elephant Stone. They were barely able to fill even a smaller 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 main attraction on that week’s Top of the Pops – a barely conceivable state of affairs for the majority of alternative groups in the late 80s.

In retrospect, you can find any number of reasons why the Stone Roses forged a unique trajectory, obviously attracting a much larger and more diverse crowd than typically displayed an interest in alternative rock 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, unashamedly virtuosic in a scene of distorted aggressive guitar playing.

But there was also the incontrovertible fact that the Stone Roses’ rhythm section swung in a way entirely unlike any other act in British alt-rock at the time. There’s an argument that the tune of Made of Stone sounded quite similar to that of Primal Scream’s old C86-era single Velocity Girl, but what the rhythm section were playing underneath it really didn’t: you could dance to it in a way that you could not to most of the tracks that featured on the turntables at the era’s alternative clubs. You in some way got the impression that the drummer Alan “Reni” Wren and the bass player Gary “Mani” Mounfield had been brought up on sounds rather different to the standard indie band influences, which was absolutely correct: Mani was a massive fan of the Byrds’ bassist Chris Hillman but his guiding lights were “good northern soul and funk”.

The fluidity of his performance was the hidden ingredient behind the Stone Roses’ self-titled debut album: it’s Mani who drives the point when I Am the Resurrection transitions from soulful beat into loose-limbed funk, his jumping riffs that add bounce of Waterfall.

Sometimes the ingredient was quite obvious. On Fools Gold, the centerpiece of the song is not the singing or Squire’s wah-pedal-heavy playing, or even the drum sample taken from Bobby Byrd’s 1971 single Hot Pants: it’s Mani’s snaking, driving bassline. When you think of She Bangs the Drums, the first thing that comes to thought is the low-end melody.

In fact, in Mani’s view, when the Stone Roses went wrong musically it was because they were insufficiently groovy. Fools Gold’s disappointing successor One Love was underwhelming, he suggested, because it “needed more groove, it’s a somewhat rigid”. He was a strong supporter of their frequently criticized follow-up record, Second Coming but believed its flaws could have been rectified by removing some of the overdubs of Led Zeppelin-inspired guitar and “returning to the groove”.

He likely had a valid argument. Second Coming’s scattering of highlights 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 figuratively urging the band to pick up the pace. His performance on Tightrope is totally contrary to the lethargy of all other elements that’s happening on the song, while on Straight to the Man he’s clearly trying to inject a some energy into what’s otherwise some unremarkable folk-rock – not a genre one suspects anyone was in a hurry to hear the Stone Roses attempt.

His efforts were in vain: Wren and Squire departed the band following Second Coming’s release, and the Stone Roses collapsed completely after a catastrophic top-billed performance at the 1996 Reading festival. But Mani’s next gig with Primal Scream had an impressively galvanising effect on a band in a decline after the cool response to 1994’s rock-y Give Out But Don’t Give Up. His sound became more echo-laden, heavier and increasingly fuzzy, but the groove that had given the Stone Roses a unique edge was still present – particularly on the laid-back funk of the 1997 single Kowalski – as was his ability to bring his bass work to the fore. His popping, hypnotic bass line is very much the highlight on the brilliant 1999 single Swastika Eyes; his playing on Kill All Hippies – similar to Swastika Eyes, a standout of Xtrmntr, easily the finest album Primal Scream had made since Screamadelica – is magnificent.

Always an friendly, sociable figure – the writer John Robb once observed that the Stone Roses’ aloofness towards the media was always broken if Mani “let his guard down” – he performed at the Stone Roses’ 2012 reunion show at Manchester’s Heaton Park playing a customised bass that bore the legend “Super-Yob”, the nickname of Slade’s outrageously styled and constantly smiling guitarist Dave Hill. Said reformation did not lead to anything more than a lengthy series of hugely lucrative gigs – two new singles released by the reconstituted four-piece served only to prove that whatever magic had been present in 1989 had proved unattainable to rediscover nearly two decades later – and Mani discreetly announced his retirement in 2021. He’d made his money and was now more concerned with angling, which additionally provided “a good reason to go to the pub”.

Maybe he felt he’d done enough: he’d definitely left a mark. The Stone Roses were influential in a variety of ways. Oasis certainly took note of their confident attitude, while Britpop as a movement was informed by a desire to break the usual commercial constraints of indie rock and reach a wider mainstream audience, as the Roses had done. But their most obvious immediate influence was a sort of groove-based change: following their initial success, you abruptly couldn’t move for indie bands 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.”