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By any measure, the rise of the Stone Roses was a rapid and extraordinary thing. It unfolded during a span of 12 months. At the beginning of 1989, they were merely a local cause of excitement in Manchester, mostly ignored by the established channels for alternative rock in Britain. Influential DJs did not champion them. The music press had hardly mentioned their latest single, Elephant Stone. They were barely able to fill 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 performance was the main draw on that week’s Top of the Pops – a scarcely imaginable state of affairs for most indie bands in the late 80s.

In hindsight, you can find any number of causes why the Stone Roses cut such an extraordinary path, obviously drawing in a much larger 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 dance music scene – their confidently defiant demeanor and the talent of the guitarist John Squire, openly virtuosic in a world of distorted aggressive guitar playing.

But there was also the incontrovertible fact that the Stone Roses’ rhythm section swung in a way completely different from anything else in British alt-rock at the time. There’s an argument that the tune 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 playing underneath it certainly did not: you could dance to it in a way that you could not to most of the songs that featured on the decks at the era’s alternative clubs. You somehow got the impression that the percussionist Alan “Reni” Wren and the bassist Gary “Mani” Mounfield had been raised on music quite distinct from the standard indie band influences, which was completely correct: Mani was a huge fan of the Byrds’ bassist Chris Hillman but his main inspirations were “great Motown-inspired and funk”.

The fluidity of his performance was the hidden ingredient behind the Stone Roses’ eponymous debut album: it’s Mani who propels the point when I Am the Resurrection shifts from Motown stomp into free-flowing groove, his jumping lines that put a spring in the step of Waterfall.

Sometimes the sauce was quite obvious. On Fools Gold, the centerpiece of the song is not the singing or Squire’s effect-laden guitar work, or even the breakbeat taken from Bobby Byrd’s 1971 single Hot Pants: it’s Mani’s writhing, driving bassline. When you recall She Bangs the Drums, the initial element that springs to mind is the low-end melody.

In fact, in Mani’s opinion, when the Stone Roses stumbled artistically it was because they were insufficiently groovy. Fools Gold’s disappointing follow-up One Love was underwhelming, he proposed, 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 flaws might have been fixed by cutting some of the overdubs of hard rock-influenced six-string work and “returning to the groove”.

He likely had a point. Second Coming’s handful of highlights often occur during the moments when Mounfield was really given free rein – Daybreak, Love Spreads, the superb Begging You – while on its increasingly sluggish songs, you can sense him figuratively urging the band to pick up the pace. His playing on Tightrope is totally contrary to the lethargy of all other elements 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 country-rock – not a style anyone would guess anyone was in a hurry to hear the Stone Roses attempt.

His attempts were in vain: Wren and Squire departed the band following Second Coming’s launch, and the Stone Roses collapsed entirely after a disastrous headlining set at the 1996 Reading festival. But Mani’s subsequent role with Primal Scream had an remarkably galvanising impact on a band in a decline after the cool response to 1994’s guitar-driven Give Out But Don’t Give Up. His tone became dubbier, heavier and more fuzzy, but the swing that had provided the Stone Roses a point of difference was still in evidence – especially on the low-slung funk of the 1997 single Kowalski – as was his skill to push his playing to the fore. His percussive, hypnotic low-end pattern is very much the highlight on the brilliant 1999 single Swastika Eyes; his contribution on Kill All Hippies – similar to Swastika Eyes, a standout of Xtrmntr, easily the finest album Primal Scream had produced since Screamadelica – is magnificent.

Consistently an affable, clubbable figure – 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 show at Manchester’s Heaton Park using a customised bass that displayed the inscription “Super-Yob”, the moniker of Slade’s preposterously coiffured and permanently grinning guitarist Dave Hill. This reunion failed to translate into anything beyond a lengthy series of extremely profitable concerts – a couple of new singles released by the reconstituted four-piece only demonstrated that whatever magic had existed in 1989 had proved unattainable to rediscover nearly two decades later – and Mani quietly announced his retirement in 2021. He’d earned his fortune and was now focused on fly-fishing, which additionally offered “a good reason to go to the pub”.

Perhaps he felt he’d done enough: he’d definitely made an impact. The Stone Roses were seminal in a range of ways. Oasis undoubtedly observed their swaggering attitude, while Britpop as a whole was informed by a aim to break the standard market limitations of alternative music and attract a more mainstream audience, as the Roses had done. But their most obvious immediate effect was a sort of rhythmic shift: in the wake of their initial success, you suddenly couldn’t move for indie bands who aimed to make their audiences dance. That was Mani’s artistic raison d’être. “It’s what the bass and drums are for, right?” he once averred. “That’s what they’re for.”