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By every metric, the ascent of the Stone Roses was a rapid and extraordinary thing. It took place during a span of 12 months. At the start of 1989, they were just a local cause of excitement in Manchester, largely ignored by the established channels for alternative rock in Britain. Influential DJs did not champion them. The rock journalism had hardly mentioned their latest single, Elephant Stone. They were barely able to fill even a more modest London venue 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 main draw on that week’s Top of the Pops – a scarcely conceivable state of affairs for the majority of indie bands in the end of the 1980s.

In hindsight, you can identify any number of reasons why the Stone Roses cut such an extraordinary path, clearly attracting a far bigger and broader crowd than typically displayed an interest in indie music at the time. They were distinguished by their appearance – which seemed to align them more to the expanding dance music scene – their confidently defiant demeanor and the talent of the guitarist John Squire, unashamedly virtuosic in a world of distorted aggressive guitar playing.

But there was also the undeniable fact that the Stone Roses’ bass and drums swung in a way completely different from any other act 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 rhythm section were doing underneath it certainly did not: you could move to it in a way that you could not to the majority of the tracks that featured on the turntables at the era’s alternative clubs. You in some way got the impression that the percussionist Alan “Reni” Wren and the bassist Gary “Mani” Mounfield had been brought up on sounds rather different to the usual alternative group set texts, which was completely right: Mani was a massive fan of the Byrds’ bassist Chris Hillman but his main inspirations were “great northern soul and groove music”.

The smoothness of his performance 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 soulful beat into loose-limbed funk, his octave-leaping riffs that add bounce of Waterfall.

At times the sauce was quite obvious. On Fools Gold, the centerpiece of the song is not the singing or Squire’s effect-laden playing, or even the drum sample borrowed from Bobby Byrd’s 1971 single Hot Pants: it’s Mani’s snaking, driving bass. When you recall She Bangs the Drums, the first thing that springs to mind is the bass line.

Indeed, in Mani’s opinion, when the Stone Roses went wrong artistically it was because they were insufficiently funky. Fools Gold’s disappointing successor One Love was lackluster, he proposed, because it “needed more groove, it’s a somewhat stiff”. He was a staunch supporter of their oft-dismissed follow-up record, Second Coming but believed its flaws might have been fixed by removing some of the overdubs of hard rock-influenced guitar and “returning to the rhythm”.

He likely had a point. Second Coming’s handful of highlights often coincide with the moments when Mounfield was really allowed to let rip – Daybreak, Love Spreads, the superb Begging You – while on its increasingly turgid songs, you can hear him metaphorically willing the band to pick up the pace. His playing on Tightrope is completely 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 inject a some pep into what’s otherwise some nondescript folk-rock – not a genre anyone would guess anyone was in a hurry to hear the Stone Roses attempt.

His efforts were unsuccessful: 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 remarkably galvanising effect 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, weightier and more fuzzy, but the groove that had provided the Stone Roses a unique edge was still in evidence – especially on the laid-back funk of the 1997 single Kowalski – as was his skill to bring his playing to the fore. His popping, hypnotic low-end pattern is certainly 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 superb.

Always an friendly, clubbable presence – the author John Robb once noted that the Stone Roses’ aloofness 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 displayed the inscription “Super-Yob”, the nickname of Slade’s outrageously coiffured and permanently grinning guitarist Dave Hill. This reunion did not lead to anything more than a long succession of hugely profitable gigs – a couple of new singles put out by the reconstituted quartet only demonstrated that any spark had existed in 1989 had proved unattainable to rediscover 18 years on – and Mani discreetly announced his departure from music in 2021. He’d earned his fortune and was now focused on angling, which furthermore provided “a good reason to go to the pub”.

Perhaps he felt he’d achieved plenty: he’d certainly made an impact. The Stone Roses were seminal in a range of ways. Oasis undoubtedly observed their confident approach, while Britpop as a whole was shaped by a desire to transcend the usual market limitations of indie rock and attract a wider general public, as the Roses had done. But their clearest immediate effect was a sort of rhythmic change: following their early success, you suddenly encountered many indie bands who wanted to make their fans dance. That was Mani’s artistic raison d’être. “It’s what the rhythm section are for, right?” he once stated. “That’s what they’re for.”