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By every measure, the ascent of the Stone Roses was a rapid and remarkable phenomenon. It unfolded over the course of 12 months. At the beginning of 1989, they were merely a regional source of buzz in Manchester, largely overlooked by the traditional channels for alternative rock in Britain. Influential DJs did not champion them. The rock journalism had hardly covered their latest single, Elephant Stone. They were struggling to fill even a smaller London venue 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 big attraction on that week’s Top of the Pops – a scarcely conceivable situation for most alternative groups in the end of the 1980s.

In retrospect, you can find numerous reasons why the Stone Roses forged a unique trajectory, obviously drawing in a far bigger and broader crowd than typically displayed an interest in indie music at the time. They were set apart by their appearance – which appeared to connect them more to the expanding acid house scene – their confidently defiant attitude and the talent of the lead guitarist John Squire, unashamedly virtuosic in a world of fuzzy thrashing downstrokes.

But there was also the incontrovertible fact that the Stone Roses’ rhythm section swung in a way completely different from anything else in British alternative music at the time. There’s an point that the melody of Made of Stone bore a distinct resemblance to that of Primal Scream’s old C86-era single Velocity Girl, but what the bass and drums were doing behind it certainly did not: you could dance to it in a way that you simply couldn’t to most of the songs that featured on the decks at the era’s alternative clubs. You somehow felt that the drummer Alan “Reni” Wren and the bassist Gary “Mani” Mounfield had been raised on sounds quite distinct from the usual alternative group influences, which was absolutely right: Mani was a huge admirer of the Byrds’ low-end maestro Chris Hillman but his guiding lights were “good northern soul and groove music”.

The smoothness of his playing was the secret sauce behind the Stone Roses’ self-titled first record: it’s Mani who drives the moment when I Am the Resurrection shifts from soulful beat into free-flowing funk, his octave-leaping lines that add bounce of Waterfall.

At times the ingredient wasn’t so secret. On Fools Gold, the focal point of the song isn’t really the vocal melody or Squire’s effect-laden guitar work, or even the drum sample borrowed from Bobby Byrd’s 1971 single Hot Pants: it’s Mani’s writhing, relentless bassline. When you think of She Bangs the Drums, the initial element that springs to mind is the bass line.

Indeed, in Mani’s opinion, when the Stone Roses stumbled artistically it was because they were insufficiently groovy. Fools Gold’s underwhelming follow-up One Love was underwhelming, he suggested, because it “needed more groove, it’s a somewhat stiff”. He was a staunch supporter of their frequently criticized second album, Second Coming but thought its flaws could have been rectified by cutting some of the overdubs of hard rock-influenced six-string work and “returning to the groove”.

He likely had a valid argument. Second Coming’s handful of highlights often occur during the moments when Mounfield was truly allowed to let rip – 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 completely contrary to the listlessness of all other elements that’s happening on the song, while on Straight to the Man he’s clearly attempting to add a some energy into what’s otherwise just some unremarkable folk-rock – not a genre anyone would guess listeners was in a hurry to hear the Stone Roses give a try.

His efforts were in vain: Wren and Squire departed the band following Second Coming’s release, and the Stone Roses collapsed completely after a disastrous top-billed performance at the 1996 Reading festival. But Mani’s subsequent role with Primal Scream had an impressively 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, heavier and increasingly fuzzy, 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 fore. His percussive, mesmerising bass line is certainly the star turn on the brilliant 1999 single Swastika Eyes; his contribution on Kill All Hippies – similar to Swastika Eyes, a standout of Xtrmntr, undoubtedly the best album Primal Scream had made since Screamadelica – is superb.

Consistently an affable, clubbable figure – the author John Robb once observed that the Stone Roses’ aloofness towards the media was always punctured if Mani “let his guard down” – he took the stage at the Stone Roses’ 2012 reunion concert at Manchester’s Heaton Park using a personalised bass that bore the inscription “Super-Yob”, the nickname of Slade’s outrageously coiffured and constantly smiling axeman Dave Hill. This reunion failed to translate into anything more than a lengthy series of hugely lucrative gigs – a couple of new singles released by the reformed four-piece only demonstrated that whatever spark had existed in 1989 had turned out impossible to rediscover nearly two decades later – and Mani discreetly announced his departure from music in 2021. He’d earned his fortune and was now focused on fly-fishing, which furthermore provided “a good excuse to go to the pub”.

Maybe he thought he’d achieved plenty: he’d definitely made an impact. The Stone Roses were influential in a variety of manners. Oasis undoubtedly took note of their swaggering approach, while Britpop as a whole was shaped by a desire to break the standard market limitations of alternative music and attract a wider general public, as the Roses had achieved. But their most obvious direct influence was a sort of rhythmic change: following their early success, you suddenly encountered many alternative acts who wanted 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 stated. “That’s what they’re for.”