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By any measure, the ascent of the Stone Roses was a sudden and extraordinary phenomenon. 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 overlooked by the traditional channels for indie music in Britain. John Peel wasn’t a fan. The rock journalism had hardly covered their most recent single, Elephant Stone. They were struggling to fill even a more modest London venue such as Dingwalls. But by November they were massive. Their single Fools Gold had entered the charts at No 8 and their appearance was the main draw on that week’s Top of the Pops – a scarcely conceivable situation for most indie bands in the end of the 1980s.

In hindsight, you can identify numerous reasons why the Stone Roses cut such an extraordinary path, obviously attracting a far bigger and broader audience than usually showed enthusiasm for indie music at the time. They were set apart by their appearance – which seemed to align them more to the burgeoning acid house movement – their confidently defiant attitude and the talent of the lead guitarist John Squire, unashamedly virtuosic in a scene of distorted aggressive guitar playing.

But there was also the incontrovertible truth that the Stone Roses’ bass and drums grooved in a way entirely unlike any other act in British alternative music 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 doing underneath 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 indie discos. You in some way felt that the percussionist Alan “Reni” Wren and the bass player Gary “Mani” Mounfield had been brought up on music rather different to the usual indie band influences, which was completely correct: Mani was a massive admirer of the Byrds’ low-end maestro Chris Hillman but his guiding lights were “great northern soul and funk”.

The smoothness of his performance was the secret sauce behind the Stone Roses’ self-titled first record: it’s him who drives the point when I Am the Resurrection transitions from Motown stomp into loose-limbed funk, his octave-leaping lines that add bounce of Waterfall.

Sometimes the sauce wasn’t so secret. 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 writhing, relentless bass. When you think of She Bangs the Drums, the initial element that springs to mind is the bass line.

Indeed, in Mani’s view, when the Stone Roses stumbled artistically it was because they were not enough funky. Fools Gold’s disappointing follow-up One Love was lackluster, he suggested, because it “needed more groove, it’s a somewhat rigid”. He was a staunch defender of their oft-dismissed second album, Second Coming but thought its weaknesses might have been fixed by removing some of the overdubs of Led Zeppelin-inspired guitar and “reverting to the rhythm”.

He may well have had a point. Second Coming’s scattering of highlights often coincide with the instances when Mounfield was truly given free rein – Daybreak, Love Spreads, the superb Begging You – while on its increasingly turgid songs, you can sense him metaphorically urging 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 song, while on Straight to the Man he’s audibly trying to add a bit of pep into what’s otherwise some unremarkable folk-rock – not a style one suspects listeners was in a hurry to hear the Stone Roses give a try.

His attempts were unsuccessful: Wren and Squire left the band following Second Coming’s launch, and the Stone Roses imploded entirely after a catastrophic headlining performance at the 1996 Reading festival. But Mani’s next gig with Primal Scream had an impressively galvanising impact on a band in a slump after the tepid reception to 1994’s rock-y 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 present – particularly on the laid-back rhythm of the 1997 single Kowalski – as was his ability to bring his bass work to the front. His percussive, mesmerising bass line is certainly the star turn on the fantastic 1999 single Swastika Eyes; his playing on Kill All Hippies – like Swastika Eyes, a highlight of Xtrmntr, easily the best album Primal Scream had made since Screamadelica – is magnificent.

Consistently an affable, clubbable figure – the author John Robb once noted that the Stone Roses’ aloofness towards the media was always punctured if Mani “became more relaxed” – he performed at the Stone Roses’ 2012 reunion concert at Manchester’s Heaton Park using a personalised bass that bore the inscription “Super-Yob”, the moniker of Slade’s outrageously coiffured and permanently grinning guitarist Dave Hill. This reunion did not lead to anything more than a lengthy series of hugely lucrative concerts – a couple of new singles released by the reformed four-piece only demonstrated that any spark had been present in 1989 had turned out unattainable to recapture 18 years on – and Mani quietly declared his retirement in 2021. He’d earned his fortune and was now focused on angling, which additionally provided “a good reason to go to the pub”.

Perhaps he thought he’d achieved plenty: he’d definitely made an impact. The Stone Roses were influential in a variety of manners. Oasis undoubtedly observed their confident attitude, while Britpop as a movement was shaped by a desire to transcend the usual commercial constraints of alternative music and attract a wider general public, as the Roses had done. But their most obvious direct effect was a sort of groove-based change: following their early success, you abruptly encountered many indie bands 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.”