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By any metric, the ascent of the Stone Roses was a rapid and extraordinary phenomenon. It took place over the course of one year. At the beginning of 1989, they were just 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 hardly covered their latest single, Elephant Stone. They were barely able to fill 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 state of affairs for most indie bands in the late 80s.

In hindsight, you can identify numerous reasons why the Stone Roses cut such an extraordinary path, obviously drawing in a much larger and broader audience 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 expanding dance music scene – their confidently defiant demeanor and the skill of the guitarist John Squire, openly masterful in a scene of fuzzy aggressive guitar playing.

But there was also the incontrovertible fact that the Stone Roses’ bass and drums swung in a way completely unlike any other act in British alternative music at the time. There’s an point that the melody of Made of Stone bore a distinct resemblance to that of Primal Scream’s old C86-era single Velocity Girl, but what the rhythm section were doing behind it certainly did not: you could dance to it in a way that you simply couldn’t to the majority of the songs that featured on the turntables at the era’s alternative clubs. You in some way 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 usual indie band influences, which was absolutely correct: Mani was a huge admirer of the Byrds’ bassist Chris Hillman but his main inspirations were “good Motown-inspired and funk”.

The smoothness of his playing was the hidden ingredient behind the Stone Roses’ self-titled debut album: it’s him who drives the moment when I Am the Resurrection shifts from soulful beat into loose-limbed funk, his octave-leaping lines that put a spring in the step of Waterfall.

At times the sauce 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 drum sample borrowed from Bobby Byrd’s 1971 single Hot Pants: it’s Mani’s writhing, driving bass. When you think of She Bangs the Drums, the first thing that comes to thought is the bass line.

Indeed, in Mani’s view, when the Stone Roses stumbled artistically it was because they were insufficiently funky. Fools Gold’s underwhelming successor One Love was lackluster, he suggested, because it “needed more groove, it’s a little bit rigid”. He was a strong supporter of their frequently criticized follow-up record, Second Coming but thought its weaknesses might have been fixed by removing some of the layers of hard rock-influenced six-string work and “returning to the groove”.

He may well have had a point. Second Coming’s handful of highlights often occur during the moments when Mounfield was really allowed to let rip – Daybreak, Love Spreads, the superb Begging You – while on its increasingly sluggish songs, you can hear him metaphorically urging the band to pick up the pace. His performance on Tightrope is completely at odds with the lethargy of everything else that’s happening on the track, while on Straight to the Man he’s clearly attempting to add a bit of pep into what’s otherwise some unremarkable folk-rock – not a style one suspects listeners was in a rush to hear the Stone Roses attempt.

His efforts were in vain: Wren and Squire left the band following Second Coming’s launch, and the Stone Roses collapsed completely after a disastrous top-billed set at the 1996 Reading festival. But Mani’s next gig with Primal Scream had an remarkably energising effect on a band in a slump after the tepid response to 1994’s rock-y Give Out But Don’t Give Up. His sound became dubbier, heavier and increasingly fuzzy, but the swing that had provided the Stone Roses a unique edge was still present – especially on the low-slung rhythm of the 1997 single Kowalski – as was his skill to push his bass work to the fore. His popping, mesmerising low-end pattern is certainly the highlight on the fantastic 1999 single Swastika Eyes; his playing on Kill All Hippies – like Swastika Eyes, a highlight of Xtrmntr, undoubtedly the best album Primal Scream had produced since Screamadelica – is magnificent.

Always an affable, clubbable figure – the writer John Robb once observed that the Stone Roses’ hauteur towards the press was always punctured if Mani “let his guard down” – he performed at the Stone Roses’ 2012 reunion show at Manchester’s Heaton Park using a customised bass that displayed the legend “Super-Yob”, the moniker of Slade’s outrageously coiffured and constantly smiling guitarist Dave Hill. This reunion did not lead to anything beyond a long succession of hugely profitable gigs – a couple of new singles put out by the reformed quartet only demonstrated that whatever spark had existed in 1989 had proved impossible to rediscover 18 years on – and Mani quietly announced his departure from music in 2021. He’d earned his fortune and was now more concerned with fly-fishing, which additionally provided “a good reason to go to the pub”.

Maybe he felt he’d achieved plenty: he’d definitely made an impact. The Stone Roses were influential in a variety of ways. Oasis undoubtedly observed their swaggering approach, while the 90s British music scene as a movement was shaped by a aim to break the standard market limitations of indie rock and reach a more mainstream audience, as the Roses had done. But their most obvious direct effect was a kind of groove-based shift: following their early success, you abruptly 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 averred. “That’s what they’re for.”