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By any measure, the ascent of the Stone Roses was a rapid and extraordinary phenomenon. It took place over the course of 12 months. At the beginning of 1989, they were just a regional source of buzz in Manchester, mostly overlooked by the traditional channels for indie music in Britain. John Peel did not champion them. The rock journalism had hardly covered their most recent single, Elephant Stone. They were struggling to pack even a smaller 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 attraction on that week’s Top of the Pops – a barely imaginable state of affairs for most indie bands in the end of the 1980s.

In retrospect, you can find numerous causes why the Stone Roses forged a unique trajectory, obviously attracting a far bigger and more diverse audience than usually displayed an interest in indie music at the time. They were set apart by their look – which appeared to connect them more to the expanding dance music movement – their cockily belligerent demeanor and the talent of the guitarist John Squire, unashamedly virtuosic in a world of distorted aggressive guitar playing.

But there was also the incontrovertible fact that the Stone Roses’ rhythm section grooved in a way completely unlike anything else in British alt-rock at the time. There’s an argument 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 certainly did not: you could dance to it in a way that you simply couldn’t to most of the tracks that featured on the turntables at the era’s indie discos. You somehow got the impression that the drummer Alan “Reni” Wren and the bassist Gary “Mani” Mounfield had been brought up on sounds quite distinct from the standard indie band influences, which was completely right: Mani was a massive fan of the Byrds’ bassist Chris Hillman but his main inspirations were “good northern soul and funk”.

The smoothness 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 soulful beat into loose-limbed funk, his octave-leaping riffs that put a spring in the step of Waterfall.

Sometimes the ingredient was quite obvious. On Fools Gold, the centerpiece of the song is not the singing or Squire’s wah-pedal-heavy playing, or even the drum sample taken from Bobby Byrd’s 1971 single Hot Pants: it’s Mani’s writhing, relentless bassline. When you recall She Bangs the Drums, the initial element that comes to thought is the bass line.

In fact, in Mani’s view, when the Stone Roses stumbled artistically it was because they were not enough groovy. Fools Gold’s disappointing follow-up One Love was lackluster, he suggested, because it “could have swung, it’s a somewhat stiff”. He was a staunch supporter of their frequently criticized follow-up record, Second Coming but believed its weaknesses might have been fixed by removing some of the overdubs of Led Zeppelin-inspired six-string work and “returning to the groove”.

He likely had a point. Second Coming’s handful of highlights often coincide with the instances when Mounfield was truly given free rein – Daybreak, Love Spreads, the excellent Begging You – while on its increasingly sluggish songs, you can hear him figuratively willing the band to pick up the pace. His playing on Tightrope is completely contrary to the listlessness of all other elements that’s happening 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 folk-rock – not a genre one suspects anyone 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 launch, and the Stone Roses imploded entirely after a disastrous top-billed performance at the 1996 Reading festival. But Mani’s next gig with Primal Scream had an remarkably energising impact on a band in a slump after the cool response to 1994’s rock-y Give Out But Don’t Give Up. His tone became more echo-laden, weightier and more fuzzy, but the groove that had given the Stone Roses a unique edge was still present – especially on the low-slung funk of the 1997 single Kowalski – as was his ability to push his playing to the front. His popping, mesmerising bass line is certainly the highlight on the fantastic 1999 single Swastika Eyes; his contribution on Kill All Hippies – like Swastika Eyes, a highlight of Xtrmntr, easily the best album Primal Scream had produced since Screamadelica – is superb.

Consistently an affable, sociable presence – the author John Robb once noted that the Stone Roses’ hauteur towards the press was always broken 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 inscription “Super-Yob”, the moniker of Slade’s preposterously coiffured and permanently smiling guitarist Dave Hill. This reformation did not lead to anything beyond a long series of extremely profitable gigs – a couple of fresh singles put out by the reconstituted four-piece only demonstrated that any spark had been present in 1989 had proved unattainable to rediscover 18 years on – and Mani discreetly announced his retirement in 2021. He’d earned his fortune and was now focused on fly-fishing, which furthermore offered “a great reason to go to the pub”.

Maybe he thought he’d done enough: he’d definitely made an impact. The Stone Roses were influential in a range of manners. Oasis certainly took note of their confident attitude, while Britpop as a movement was shaped by a desire to transcend the standard market limitations of indie rock and attract a wider general public, as the Roses had achieved. But their most obvious direct effect was a sort of groove-based shift: following their early success, you suddenly couldn’t move for alternative acts who aimed to make their fans dance. That was Mani’s musical raison d’être. “It’s what the rhythm section are for, right?” he once stated. “That’s what they’re for.”