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By any measure, the rise of the Stone Roses was a sudden and extraordinary phenomenon. It unfolded during a span of one year. At the start of 1989, they were merely a local source of buzz in Manchester, mostly overlooked by the established outlets for alternative rock in Britain. Influential DJs did not champion them. The rock journalism had barely mentioned their latest single, Elephant Stone. They were barely able to pack 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 performance was the big attraction on that week’s Top of the Pops – a scarcely conceivable state of affairs for the majority of alternative groups in the end of the 1980s.

In hindsight, you can find any number of reasons why the Stone Roses cut such an extraordinary path, clearly attracting a much larger and broader audience than usually showed enthusiasm for alternative rock at the time. They were set apart by their look – which seemed to align them more to the burgeoning dance music scene – their cockily belligerent demeanor and the talent of the lead guitarist John Squire, openly masterful in a scene of distorted aggressive guitar playing.

But there was also the undeniable fact that the Stone Roses’ rhythm section grooved in a way entirely unlike any other act in British alternative music at the time. There’s an argument that the tune of Made of Stone bore a distinct resemblance to that of Primal Scream’s early C86-era single Velocity Girl, but what the bass and drums were doing behind it really didn’t: you could dance to it in a way that you could not to the majority of the tracks that graced the decks at the era’s indie discos. You in some way felt that the drummer Alan “Reni” Wren and the bassist Gary “Mani” Mounfield had been raised on music quite distinct from the usual alternative group set texts, which was completely correct: Mani was a huge fan of the Byrds’ low-end maestro Chris Hillman but his guiding lights were “great northern soul and groove music”.

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

Sometimes the ingredient wasn’t so secret. On Fools Gold, the focal point of the song is not the vocal melody or Squire’s wah-pedal-heavy playing, or even the breakbeat borrowed from Bobby Byrd’s 1971 single Hot Pants: it’s Mani’s snaking, relentless bassline. When you recall She Bangs the Drums, the first thing that comes to thought is the bass line.

Indeed, in Mani’s view, when the Stone Roses went wrong musically it was because they were not enough groovy. Fools Gold’s underwhelming follow-up One Love was underwhelming, he proposed, because it “needed more groove, it’s a little bit rigid”. He was a staunch defender of their frequently criticized second album, Second Coming but believed its flaws might have been fixed by removing some of the overdubs of hard rock-influenced six-string work and “returning to the rhythm”.

He likely had a valid argument. Second Coming’s scattering of standout tracks often occur during the instances when Mounfield was truly allowed to let rip – Daybreak, Love Spreads, the superb Begging You – while on its more turgid songs, you can sense him figuratively urging the band to increase the tempo. His performance on Tightrope is totally contrary to the lethargy of all other elements that’s going on on the track, while on Straight to the Man he’s audibly trying to add a bit of energy into what’s otherwise just some nondescript folk-rock – not a genre one suspects anyone was in a hurry to hear the Stone Roses attempt.

His efforts were unsuccessful: Wren and Squire departed the band in the wake of Second Coming’s release, and the Stone Roses collapsed entirely 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 cool response to 1994’s rock-y Give Out But Don’t Give Up. His sound became dubbier, weightier and increasingly fuzzy, but the swing that had provided 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 bass work to the front. His percussive, hypnotic bass line is certainly the star turn on the brilliant 1999 single Swastika Eyes; his playing on Kill All Hippies – similar to Swastika Eyes, a standout of Xtrmntr, undoubtedly the finest album Primal Scream had made since Screamadelica – is magnificent.

Always an friendly, clubbable figure – the writer John Robb once noted that the Stone Roses’ aloofness 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 legend “Super-Yob”, the nickname of Slade’s outrageously styled and permanently grinning axeman Dave Hill. Said reformation did not lead to anything more than a lengthy series of hugely profitable gigs – two fresh tracks put out by the reformed quartet served only to prove that whatever magic had been present in 1989 had proved impossible to rediscover nearly two decades on – and Mani discreetly declared his retirement in 2021. He’d earned his fortune and was now focused on angling, which additionally offered “a great reason to go to the pub”.

Perhaps he thought he’d achieved plenty: he’d certainly made an impact. The Stone Roses were influential in a range of ways. Oasis certainly observed their confident approach, while Britpop as a movement was informed by a aim to transcend the standard market limitations of indie rock and attract a wider general public, as the Roses had done. But their most obvious immediate influence was a sort of groove-based shift: in the wake of their initial success, you suddenly encountered many indie bands who aimed to make their audiences move. That was Mani’s artistic raison d’être. “It’s what the rhythm section are for, aren’t they?” he once stated. “That’s what they’re for.”