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By every metric, the rise of the Stone Roses was a sudden and extraordinary phenomenon. It took place over the course of 12 months. At the beginning of 1989, they were merely a local cause of excitement in Manchester, mostly overlooked by the traditional outlets for alternative rock in Britain. Influential DJs did not champion them. The rock journalism had barely mentioned their latest single, Elephant Stone. They were struggling to pack even a more modest London club such as Dingwalls. But by November they were huge. Their single Fools Gold had debuted on the charts at No 8 and their appearance was the big draw on that week’s Top of the Pops – a scarcely imaginable situation for most indie bands in the late 80s.

In retrospect, you can find any number of causes why the Stone Roses cut such an extraordinary path, obviously attracting a much larger and more diverse crowd than typically showed enthusiasm for indie music at the time. They were distinguished by their appearance – which seemed to align them more to the burgeoning dance music scene – their confidently defiant demeanor and the skill of the guitarist John Squire, openly masterful in a world of fuzzy thrashing downstrokes.

But there was also the undeniable fact that the Stone Roses’ bass and drums 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 early C86-era single Velocity Girl, but what the rhythm section were playing behind it certainly did not: you could move to it in a way that you could not to the majority of the songs that graced 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 sounds quite distinct from the usual alternative group influences, which was completely right: Mani was a huge fan of the Byrds’ bassist Chris Hillman but his guiding lights were “good Motown-inspired and groove music”.

The fluidity of his playing was the hidden ingredient behind the Stone Roses’ self-titled debut album: it’s him who drives the point when I Am the Resurrection transitions from soulful beat into loose-limbed groove, his jumping lines that put a spring in the step of Waterfall.

Sometimes the sauce was quite obvious. On Fools Gold, the focal point of the song isn’t really the singing or Squire’s wah-pedal-heavy playing, or even the breakbeat taken 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 comes to thought is the bass line.

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 underwhelming, he suggested, because it “needed more groove, it’s a somewhat rigid”. He was a strong defender of their oft-dismissed second album, Second Coming but thought its weaknesses could have been rectified by removing some of the overdubs of hard rock-influenced guitar and “returning to the groove”.

He may well have had a point. Second Coming’s scattering of highlights often occur during the moments when Mounfield was really allowed to let rip – Daybreak, Love Spreads, the superb Begging You – while on its more turgid songs, you can sense him figuratively willing the band to pick up the pace. His performance on Tightrope is totally contrary to the listlessness of everything else that’s happening on the track, while on Straight to the Man he’s audibly trying to add a some energy into what’s otherwise just some unremarkable country-rock – not a style anyone would guess anyone was in a rush to hear the Stone Roses give a try.

His attempts were unsuccessful: Wren and Squire departed the band following Second Coming’s launch, and the Stone Roses imploded completely after a catastrophic top-billed set at the 1996 Reading festival. But Mani’s subsequent role with Primal Scream had an impressively energising effect on a band in a decline after the tepid response to 1994’s rock-y Give Out But Don’t Give Up. His sound became dubbier, weightier and more fuzzy, but the swing that had provided the Stone Roses a unique edge was still present – especially on the laid-back rhythm of the 1997 single Kowalski – as was his skill to bring his bass work to the fore. His popping, mesmerising low-end pattern is very much the highlight on the fantastic 1999 single Swastika Eyes; his contribution on Kill All Hippies – similar to Swastika Eyes, a standout of Xtrmntr, easily the best album Primal Scream had made since Screamadelica – is superb.

Always an affable, sociable figure – the writer John Robb once observed that the Stone Roses’ aloofness towards the media 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 displayed the legend “Super-Yob”, the nickname of Slade’s preposterously coiffured and permanently grinning axeman Dave Hill. Said reunion failed to translate into anything beyond a lengthy series of extremely profitable gigs – two new tracks put out by the reconstituted four-piece served only to prove that any magic had been present in 1989 had turned out unattainable to rediscover 18 years later – and Mani discreetly declared his retirement in 2021. He’d earned his fortune and was now focused on angling, which additionally offered “a great excuse to go to the pub”.

Perhaps he thought he’d achieved plenty: he’d certainly left a mark. The Stone Roses were influential in a variety of ways. Oasis certainly took note of their swaggering attitude, while the 90s British music scene as a whole was informed by a aim to break the usual market limitations of alternative music and reach a wider general public, as the Roses had achieved. But their clearest direct effect was a sort 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 bass and drums are for, aren’t they?” he once averred. “That’s what they’re for.”