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By any measure, the ascent of the Stone Roses was a sudden and extraordinary thing. It took place over the course of one year. At the beginning of 1989, they were just a regional source of buzz in Manchester, mostly overlooked 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 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 draw on that week’s Top of the Pops – a barely imaginable situation for the majority of indie bands in the end of the 1980s.

In hindsight, you can find numerous causes why the Stone Roses forged a unique trajectory, clearly drawing in a much larger and broader crowd than typically displayed an interest in alternative rock at the time. They were distinguished by their look – which seemed to align them more to the burgeoning dance music movement – their confidently defiant demeanor and the talent of the guitarist John Squire, openly virtuosic in a scene 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 alternative music at the time. There’s an argument that the tune of Made of Stone bore a distinct resemblance to that of Primal Scream’s early C86-era single Velocity Girl, but what the bass and drums were doing underneath it certainly did not: you could move to it in a way that you simply couldn’t to the majority of the songs that graced the turntables at the era’s indie discos. You somehow got the impression that the percussionist Alan “Reni” Wren and the bassist Gary “Mani” Mounfield had been raised on sounds quite distinct from the standard indie band 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 groove music”.

The fluidity of his playing was the hidden ingredient behind the Stone Roses’ eponymous debut album: it’s him who propels the point when I Am the Resurrection transitions from Motown stomp into free-flowing groove, his octave-leaping lines that put a spring in the step of Waterfall.

Sometimes the ingredient was quite obvious. On Fools Gold, the centerpiece of the song is not the vocal melody or Squire’s wah-pedal-heavy playing, or even the breakbeat borrowed from Bobby Byrd’s 1971 single Hot Pants: it’s Mani’s writhing, relentless bassline. When you recall She Bangs the Drums, the first thing that springs to mind is the low-end melody.

In fact, in Mani’s view, 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 “could have swung, it’s a little bit stiff”. He was a strong supporter of their frequently criticized second album, Second Coming but thought its weaknesses could have been rectified by removing some of the overdubs of Led Zeppelin-inspired six-string work and “returning to the rhythm”.

He may well have had a valid argument. Second Coming’s scattering of highlights usually coincide with the moments when Mounfield was truly given free rein – Daybreak, Love Spreads, the excellent Begging You – while on its more sluggish songs, you can hear him figuratively willing the band to pick up the pace. His performance on Tightrope is completely contrary to the listlessness of all other elements that’s happening on the song, while on Straight to the Man he’s audibly trying to add a bit of pep into what’s otherwise just some unremarkable folk-rock – not a style anyone would guess listeners was in a rush to hear the Stone Roses attempt.

His efforts were in vain: Wren and Squire left the band in the wake of Second Coming’s release, and the Stone Roses imploded entirely after a disastrous top-billed performance at the 1996 Reading festival. But Mani’s subsequent role with Primal Scream had an remarkably energising impact on a band in a slump after the cool reception to 1994’s guitar-driven Give Out But Don’t Give Up. His sound became dubbier, weightier and more distorted, but the swing that had provided the Stone Roses a unique edge was still in evidence – particularly on the low-slung rhythm of the 1997 single Kowalski – as was his ability to bring his bass work to the front. His percussive, mesmerising bass line is certainly the highlight on the brilliant 1999 single Swastika Eyes; his playing on Kill All Hippies – like Swastika Eyes, a highlight of Xtrmntr, undoubtedly the finest album Primal Scream had made since Screamadelica – is superb.

Always an affable, clubbable presence – the author John Robb once observed that the Stone Roses’ hauteur towards the press was invariably punctured if Mani “became more relaxed” – he took the stage at the Stone Roses’ 2012 comeback show at Manchester’s Heaton Park playing a customised bass that bore the legend “Super-Yob”, the nickname of Slade’s outrageously styled and permanently grinning axeman Dave Hill. Said reunion failed to translate into anything beyond a lengthy series of hugely lucrative gigs – a couple of new singles put out by the reconstituted quartet only demonstrated that whatever magic had existed in 1989 had turned out impossible to rediscover nearly two decades later – and Mani discreetly declared his retirement in 2021. He’d earned his fortune and was now focused on angling, which additionally provided “a good reason to go to the pub”.

Perhaps he felt he’d achieved plenty: he’d definitely left a mark. The Stone Roses were influential in a range of manners. Oasis undoubtedly observed their swaggering approach, while Britpop as a whole was informed by a aim to transcend the standard commercial constraints of alternative music and reach a more mainstream audience, as the Roses had achieved. But their most obvious direct effect was a kind of groove-based shift: following their early success, you abruptly couldn’t move for indie bands who aimed to make their fans move. That was Mani’s musical raison d’être. “It’s what the bass and drums are for, right?” he once averred. “That’s what they’re for.”