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By every metric, the ascent 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 just a local cause of excitement in Manchester, largely ignored by the traditional channels for alternative rock in Britain. John Peel did not champion them. The music press had barely covered their latest single, Elephant Stone. They were barely able 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 performance was the big attraction on that week’s Top of the Pops – a scarcely conceivable situation for the majority of alternative groups in the late 80s.

In hindsight, you can find any number of reasons why the Stone Roses cut such an extraordinary path, clearly attracting a far bigger and more diverse crowd than usually showed enthusiasm for alternative rock at the time. They were set apart by their appearance – which appeared to connect them more to the burgeoning acid house scene – their confidently defiant attitude and the skill 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’ 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 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 graced the turntables at the era’s indie discos. You somehow felt that the drummer Alan “Reni” Wren and the bass player Gary “Mani” Mounfield had been raised on music rather different to the usual indie band set texts, which was completely correct: Mani was a huge admirer of the Byrds’ low-end maestro Chris Hillman but his main inspirations were “good Motown-inspired and groove music”.

The fluidity of his performance was the hidden ingredient behind the Stone Roses’ self-titled first record: it’s Mani who drives the moment when I Am the Resurrection transitions from soulful beat into loose-limbed groove, his octave-leaping riffs that add bounce of Waterfall.

At times the ingredient wasn’t so secret. On Fools Gold, the focal point of the song isn’t really the singing or Squire’s effect-laden playing, or even the breakbeat taken 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 comes to thought is the low-end melody.

Indeed, in Mani’s opinion, when the Stone Roses stumbled musically it was because they were not enough funky. Fools Gold’s disappointing successor One Love was underwhelming, he proposed, because it “needed more groove, it’s a little bit rigid”. He was a strong defender of their frequently criticized second album, Second Coming but believed its flaws could have been rectified by removing some of the overdubs of hard rock-influenced six-string work and “reverting to the groove”.

He likely had a valid argument. Second Coming’s handful of highlights often coincide with the instances when Mounfield was really given free rein – Daybreak, Love Spreads, the superb Begging You – while on its more sluggish songs, you can sense him figuratively willing the band to pick up the pace. His playing on Tightrope is totally contrary to the listlessness of all other elements that’s happening on the track, while on Straight to the Man he’s clearly trying to inject a bit of energy into what’s otherwise some nondescript folk-rock – not a genre 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 performance at the 1996 Reading festival. But Mani’s next gig with Primal Scream had an impressively energising 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 fuzzy, but the swing that had given the Stone Roses a unique edge was still in evidence – particularly on the laid-back rhythm of the 1997 single Kowalski – as was his skill to push his playing to the front. His percussive, hypnotic low-end pattern is very much the highlight on the brilliant 1999 single Swastika Eyes; his contribution on Kill All Hippies – like Swastika Eyes, a standout of Xtrmntr, easily the best album Primal Scream had made since Screamadelica – is magnificent.

Consistently an affable, sociable presence – the writer John Robb once observed that the Stone Roses’ hauteur towards the media was invariably punctured if Mani “let his guard down” – he performed at the Stone Roses’ 2012 comeback concert at Manchester’s Heaton Park using a personalised bass that bore the legend “Super-Yob”, the nickname of Slade’s preposterously coiffured and constantly smiling guitarist Dave Hill. Said reunion did not lead to anything more than a long series of hugely lucrative gigs – a couple of fresh tracks put out by the reformed quartet served only to prove that whatever spark had been present in 1989 had proved unattainable to rediscover 18 years later – and Mani discreetly declared his retirement in 2021. He’d made his money and was now focused on fly-fishing, which furthermore offered “a great reason to go to the pub”.

Perhaps he felt he’d achieved plenty: he’d certainly made an impact. The Stone Roses were influential in a variety of ways. Oasis certainly took note of their confident approach, while Britpop as a movement was shaped by a aim to transcend the usual commercial constraints of indie rock and attract a more general public, as the Roses had done. But their most obvious immediate influence was a kind of rhythmic change: following their early success, you suddenly encountered many alternative acts who wanted to make their audiences move. That was Mani’s musical raison d’être. “It’s what the bass and drums are for, right?” he once stated. “That’s what they’re for.”