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By any measure, the ascent of the Stone Roses was a rapid and remarkable phenomenon. It unfolded during a span of 12 months. At the start of 1989, they were just a local cause of excitement in Manchester, mostly overlooked by the traditional outlets for alternative rock in Britain. John Peel did not champion them. The music press had hardly 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 huge. Their single Fools Gold had entered the charts at No 8 and their performance was the big draw on that week’s Top of the Pops – a barely 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, clearly drawing in a far bigger and more diverse crowd than usually displayed an interest in alternative rock at the time. They were distinguished by their look – which seemed to align them more to the burgeoning acid house scene – their confidently defiant demeanor and the talent of the lead guitarist John Squire, openly virtuosic in a world of fuzzy thrashing downstrokes.

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 argument that the melody 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 playing underneath it certainly did not: you could dance to it in a way that you could not to most of the tracks that graced the turntables at the era’s alternative clubs. You in some way got the impression that the drummer Alan “Reni” Wren and the bass player Gary “Mani” Mounfield had been brought up on music quite distinct from the standard alternative group set texts, which was completely correct: Mani was a huge admirer of the Byrds’ bassist Chris Hillman but his guiding lights were “great Motown-inspired and groove music”.

The fluidity of his playing was the secret sauce behind the Stone Roses’ eponymous debut album: it’s Mani who propels the moment when I Am the Resurrection shifts from Motown stomp into loose-limbed groove, his octave-leaping riffs that put a spring in the step of Waterfall.

Sometimes the ingredient wasn’t so secret. On Fools Gold, the focal point of the song isn’t really the vocal melody or Squire’s wah-pedal-heavy playing, or even the drum sample borrowed 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 insufficiently groovy. Fools Gold’s disappointing follow-up One Love was lackluster, he proposed, because it “could have swung, it’s a somewhat rigid”. He was a staunch supporter of their frequently criticized second album, Second Coming but thought its flaws might have been fixed by removing some of the layers of hard rock-influenced six-string work and “reverting to the rhythm”.

He likely had a valid argument. Second Coming’s handful of highlights usually coincide with the instances when Mounfield was truly given free rein – Daybreak, Love Spreads, the excellent Begging You – while on its more turgid songs, you can sense him metaphorically willing the band to increase the tempo. His performance on Tightrope is totally at odds with the listlessness of all other elements that’s going on on the track, while on Straight to the Man he’s clearly attempting to add a some pep into what’s otherwise just some unremarkable country-rock – not a genre anyone would guess anyone was in a hurry to hear the Stone Roses give a try.

His efforts were in vain: Wren and Squire left the band in the wake of Second Coming’s release, and the Stone Roses imploded completely after a disastrous top-billed performance at the 1996 Reading festival. But Mani’s next gig with Primal Scream had an impressively galvanising impact on a band in a decline after the tepid response to 1994’s rock-y Give Out But Don’t Give Up. His tone became more echo-laden, weightier and increasingly distorted, but the groove that had given the Stone Roses a point of difference was still in evidence – particularly on the laid-back rhythm of the 1997 single Kowalski – as was his ability to bring his playing to the fore. His percussive, hypnotic bass line is certainly the highlight on the fantastic 1999 single Swastika Eyes; his contribution on Kill All Hippies – like Swastika Eyes, a standout of Xtrmntr, easily the finest album Primal Scream had made since Screamadelica – is superb.

Consistently an affable, clubbable figure – the author John Robb once noted that the Stone Roses’ hauteur towards the media was invariably broken if Mani “let his guard down” – he took the stage at the Stone Roses’ 2012 reunion show at Manchester’s Heaton Park playing a personalised bass that bore the legend “Super-Yob”, the moniker of Slade’s outrageously coiffured and constantly smiling guitarist Dave Hill. Said reformation failed to translate into anything more than a lengthy succession of extremely lucrative gigs – two new tracks released by the reformed quartet served only to prove that whatever magic had existed in 1989 had proved unattainable to rediscover 18 years on – and Mani quietly declared his retirement in 2021. He’d made his money and was now focused on angling, which additionally provided “a great excuse to go to the pub”.

Maybe he thought he’d done enough: he’d certainly made an impact. The Stone Roses were seminal in a variety of manners. Oasis undoubtedly took note of their confident attitude, while the 90s British music scene as a whole was shaped by a desire to break the usual commercial constraints of indie rock and reach a more general public, as the Roses had achieved. But their clearest immediate influence was a sort of groove-based change: in the wake of their initial 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 rhythm section are for, right?” he once stated. “That’s what they’re for.”