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By every measure, the ascent of the Stone Roses was a sudden and extraordinary thing. It took place during a span of one year. At the beginning of 1989, they were just a regional cause of excitement in Manchester, mostly overlooked by the traditional outlets for indie music 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 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 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 numerous reasons why the Stone Roses forged a unique trajectory, obviously drawing in a far bigger and broader crowd than typically showed enthusiasm for alternative rock at the time. They were set apart by their look – which seemed to align them more to the expanding dance music scene – their confidently defiant attitude and the skill of the guitarist John Squire, openly virtuosic in a world of fuzzy aggressive guitar playing.

But there was also the undeniable fact that the Stone Roses’ rhythm section swung in a way completely different from anything else in British alt-rock at the time. There’s an point that the tune of Made of Stone sounded quite similar to that of Primal Scream’s old C86-era single Velocity Girl, but what the bass and drums were playing behind it really didn’t: you could dance to it in a way that you could not to most of the songs that featured on the turntables at the era’s alternative clubs. You somehow felt that the drummer Alan “Reni” Wren and the bass player Gary “Mani” Mounfield had been raised on sounds quite distinct from the standard indie band influences, which was absolutely correct: Mani was a massive admirer of the Byrds’ low-end maestro Chris Hillman but his guiding lights were “good Motown-inspired and groove music”.

The smoothness of his playing was the secret sauce behind the Stone Roses’ eponymous debut album: it’s him who drives the moment when I Am the Resurrection shifts from soulful beat into loose-limbed groove, his octave-leaping lines that add bounce of Waterfall.

Sometimes the ingredient was quite obvious. On Fools Gold, the centerpiece of the song isn’t really the vocal melody 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, relentless bassline. 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 musically it was because they were not enough groovy. Fools Gold’s disappointing successor One Love was lackluster, he proposed, because it “could have swung, it’s a little bit stiff”. He was a staunch supporter of their frequently criticized second album, Second Coming but believed its flaws could have been rectified by cutting some of the overdubs of hard rock-influenced guitar and “reverting to the rhythm”.

He may well have had a point. Second Coming’s scattering of standout tracks usually coincide with the moments when Mounfield was truly allowed to let rip – Daybreak, Love Spreads, the excellent Begging You – while on its more sluggish songs, you can sense him figuratively willing the band to increase the tempo. His playing on Tightrope is completely at odds with the listlessness of everything else that’s happening on the track, while on Straight to the Man he’s audibly attempting to inject a bit of energy into what’s otherwise just some nondescript 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 entirely after a catastrophic headlining set at the 1996 Reading festival. But Mani’s next gig with Primal Scream had an remarkably energising impact on a band in a decline after the tepid reception to 1994’s guitar-driven Give Out But Don’t Give Up. His tone became more echo-laden, heavier and more distorted, but the groove 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 skill to push his bass work to the front. His popping, hypnotic bass line is very much 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.

Consistently an friendly, clubbable figure – the author John Robb once observed that the Stone Roses’ hauteur towards the media was invariably broken if Mani “became more relaxed” – he performed at the Stone Roses’ 2012 reunion show at Manchester’s Heaton Park playing a customised bass that displayed the legend “Super-Yob”, the moniker of Slade’s outrageously styled and permanently smiling axeman Dave Hill. This reformation failed to translate into anything more than a long succession of hugely profitable gigs – two new tracks released by the reformed quartet only demonstrated that whatever spark had existed in 1989 had proved unattainable to recapture 18 years on – and Mani quietly announced his retirement in 2021. He’d made his money and was now focused on fly-fishing, which furthermore offered “a good reason to go to the pub”.

Maybe he felt 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 approach, while the 90s British music scene as a movement was informed by a aim to break the usual market limitations of indie rock and reach a wider mainstream audience, as the Roses had done. But their clearest immediate effect was a sort of rhythmic shift: in the wake of their initial success, you suddenly encountered many indie bands who wanted to make their audiences move. That was Mani’s musical raison d’être. “It’s what the bass and drums are for, aren’t they?” he once stated. “That’s what they’re for.”