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By every metric, the rise of the Stone Roses was a rapid and extraordinary phenomenon. It unfolded during a span of one year. At the beginning of 1989, they were merely a regional source of buzz in Manchester, largely ignored by the established channels for alternative rock in Britain. Influential DJs wasn’t a fan. The rock journalism had barely 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 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 barely imaginable situation for most indie bands in the end of the 1980s.

In retrospect, you can identify numerous causes why the Stone Roses cut such an extraordinary path, obviously drawing in a much larger and more diverse audience than usually showed enthusiasm for alternative rock at the time. They were distinguished by their look – which seemed to align them more to the expanding acid house movement – their cockily belligerent demeanor and the talent of the guitarist John Squire, unashamedly masterful in a world of fuzzy aggressive guitar playing.

But there was also the incontrovertible fact that the Stone Roses’ rhythm section grooved in a way completely unlike any other act in British alternative music at the time. There’s an point that the tune of Made of Stone sounded quite similar to that of Primal Scream’s early C86-era single Velocity Girl, but what the bass and drums were playing underneath it really didn’t: you could move to it in a way that you simply couldn’t to most of the songs that featured on the turntables at the era’s alternative clubs. You somehow got the impression that the percussionist Alan “Reni” Wren and the bass player Gary “Mani” Mounfield had been raised on sounds quite distinct from the standard alternative group set texts, which was absolutely right: Mani was a massive admirer of the Byrds’ bassist Chris Hillman but his guiding lights were “good northern soul and funk”.

The smoothness of his playing was the hidden ingredient behind the Stone Roses’ self-titled debut album: it’s him who propels the moment when I Am the Resurrection shifts from Motown stomp into free-flowing funk, his jumping lines that put a spring in the step of Waterfall.

At times the ingredient wasn’t so secret. On Fools Gold, the focal point of the song is not the vocal melody or Squire’s effect-laden guitar work, 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.

Indeed, in Mani’s opinion, when the Stone Roses stumbled musically it was because they were insufficiently groovy. Fools Gold’s underwhelming successor One Love was lackluster, he proposed, because it “needed more groove, it’s a little bit rigid”. He was a staunch supporter of their frequently criticized second album, Second Coming but thought its weaknesses might have been fixed by removing some of the layers of hard rock-influenced guitar and “returning to the groove”.

He may well have had a point. Second Coming’s scattering of standout tracks often occur during the moments when Mounfield was really allowed to let rip – Daybreak, Love Spreads, the superb Begging You – while on its more sluggish songs, you can hear him figuratively urging the band to increase the tempo. His playing on Tightrope is totally at odds with the lethargy of all other elements that’s happening on the track, while on Straight to the Man he’s clearly attempting to inject a some pep into what’s otherwise just some unremarkable country-rock – not a genre anyone would guess listeners was in a hurry to hear the Stone Roses give a try.

His efforts were unsuccessful: 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 remarkably galvanising effect on a band in a slump after the cool response to 1994’s guitar-driven 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 – especially on the low-slung rhythm of the 1997 single Kowalski – as was his ability to bring his bass work to the front. His popping, hypnotic bass line is certainly the star turn on the fantastic 1999 single Swastika Eyes; his contribution 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 affable, sociable presence – the writer John Robb once noted that the Stone Roses’ aloofness 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 using a customised bass that bore the inscription “Super-Yob”, the moniker of Slade’s preposterously styled and constantly smiling guitarist Dave Hill. This reformation failed to translate into anything beyond a lengthy series of hugely profitable gigs – two new singles released by the reconstituted four-piece only demonstrated that whatever spark had been present in 1989 had turned out unattainable to rediscover 18 years on – and Mani quietly declared his departure from music in 2021. He’d made his money and was now focused on fly-fishing, which additionally offered “a great reason to go to the pub”.

Maybe he thought he’d done enough: he’d certainly made an impact. The Stone Roses were influential in a range of manners. Oasis undoubtedly observed their confident attitude, while the 90s British music scene as a whole was shaped by a aim to break the standard market limitations of indie rock and attract a wider general public, as the Roses had achieved. But their most obvious immediate influence was a kind of rhythmic shift: following their initial success, you suddenly couldn’t move for alternative acts who aimed to make their fans move. That was Mani’s musical raison d’être. “It’s what the rhythm section are for, aren’t they?” he once stated. “That’s what they’re for.”