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By every metric, the rise of the Stone Roses was a sudden and extraordinary phenomenon. It took place during a span of 12 months. At the beginning of 1989, they were just a local cause of excitement in Manchester, largely overlooked by the traditional channels for alternative rock in Britain. John Peel wasn’t a fan. The rock journalism had hardly covered their latest single, Elephant Stone. They were barely able 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 performance was the main draw on that week’s Top of the Pops – a scarcely imaginable state of affairs for most alternative groups in the late 80s.

In hindsight, you can identify any number of reasons why the Stone Roses forged a unique trajectory, clearly drawing in a much larger and more diverse crowd than usually displayed an interest in indie music at the time. They were distinguished by their appearance – which seemed to align them more to the expanding acid house scene – their confidently defiant attitude and the skill of the lead guitarist John Squire, unashamedly masterful in a world of fuzzy aggressive guitar playing.

But there was also the undeniable truth that the Stone Roses’ rhythm section swung in a way entirely different from any other act in British alt-rock at the time. There’s an point 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 rhythm section were doing behind it really didn’t: you could dance to it in a way that you simply couldn’t to most of the tracks that graced the turntables at the era’s indie discos. You in some way got the impression that the percussionist Alan “Reni” Wren and the bassist Gary “Mani” Mounfield had been raised on music quite distinct from the usual indie band influences, which was absolutely correct: Mani was a huge admirer of the Byrds’ bassist Chris Hillman but his main inspirations were “great northern soul and groove music”.

The smoothness of his playing was the secret sauce behind the Stone Roses’ self-titled debut album: it’s Mani who propels the point when I Am the Resurrection shifts from Motown stomp into free-flowing groove, his jumping riffs that add bounce of Waterfall.

At times the sauce was quite obvious. On Fools Gold, the focal point of the song is not the vocal melody or Squire’s effect-laden playing, or even the breakbeat taken from Bobby Byrd’s 1971 single Hot Pants: it’s Mani’s snaking, driving bass. When you think of She Bangs the Drums, the initial element that comes to thought is the low-end melody.

Indeed, 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 defender of their oft-dismissed second album, Second Coming but thought its weaknesses could have been rectified by cutting some of the overdubs of hard rock-influenced guitar and “reverting to the groove”.

He may well have had a valid argument. Second Coming’s handful of standout tracks often occur during the moments when Mounfield was truly given free rein – Daybreak, Love Spreads, the superb Begging You – while on its increasingly turgid songs, you can sense him figuratively urging the band to pick up the pace. His playing on Tightrope is completely at odds with the listlessness of everything else that’s going on on the track, while on Straight to the Man he’s audibly trying to add a bit of energy into what’s otherwise some unremarkable country-rock – not a genre anyone would guess listeners was in a hurry to hear the Stone Roses attempt.

His attempts were unsuccessful: Wren and Squire left the band following Second Coming’s release, and the Stone Roses imploded entirely after a disastrous headlining set at the 1996 Reading festival. But Mani’s subsequent role with Primal Scream had an impressively galvanising impact on a band in a decline after the cool reception to 1994’s guitar-driven Give Out But Don’t Give Up. His tone became more echo-laden, heavier and increasingly distorted, but the swing that had provided the Stone Roses a unique edge was still in evidence – particularly on the laid-back funk of the 1997 single Kowalski – as was his skill to push his bass work to the fore. His percussive, mesmerising low-end pattern is very much the highlight on the brilliant 1999 single Swastika Eyes; his contribution on Kill All Hippies – like Swastika Eyes, a standout of Xtrmntr, undoubtedly the best album Primal Scream had made since Screamadelica – is superb.

Consistently an affable, clubbable presence – the author John Robb once observed that the Stone Roses’ hauteur towards the media was invariably punctured if Mani “became more relaxed” – he performed at the Stone Roses’ 2012 reunion concert at Manchester’s Heaton Park playing a personalised bass that displayed the legend “Super-Yob”, the moniker of Slade’s preposterously styled and permanently smiling guitarist Dave Hill. Said reunion failed to translate into anything beyond a long series of extremely profitable concerts – a couple of fresh singles released by the reformed four-piece only demonstrated that whatever magic had existed in 1989 had proved unattainable to recapture 18 years on – and Mani quietly declared his departure from music in 2021. He’d earned his fortune and was now focused on fly-fishing, which furthermore provided “a good reason to go to the pub”.

Maybe he thought he’d achieved plenty: he’d certainly left a mark. The Stone Roses were influential in a variety of ways. Oasis undoubtedly took note of their confident attitude, while Britpop as a movement was informed by a desire to transcend the usual market limitations of indie rock and attract a more mainstream audience, as the Roses had achieved. But their most obvious direct influence was a kind of groove-based change: following their initial success, you abruptly encountered many indie bands who aimed to make their fans dance. 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.”