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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 overlooked by the established outlets for alternative rock in Britain. John Peel wasn’t a fan. The rock journalism had hardly mentioned their most recent single, Elephant Stone. They were struggling to pack even a more modest London club 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 scarcely imaginable state of affairs for most indie bands 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 far bigger and broader crowd than typically showed enthusiasm for indie music at the time. They were distinguished by their look – which seemed to align them more to the burgeoning dance music movement – their cockily belligerent demeanor and the skill of the lead guitarist John Squire, openly virtuosic in a world of fuzzy aggressive guitar playing.

But there was also the undeniable fact that the Stone Roses’ rhythm section grooved in a way entirely unlike anything else in British alt-rock at the time. There’s an argument 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 bass and drums 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 graced 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 rather different to the standard alternative group set texts, which was completely correct: Mani was a massive fan of the Byrds’ bassist Chris Hillman but his guiding lights were “great northern soul and funk”.

The smoothness of his playing was the hidden ingredient behind the Stone Roses’ eponymous first record: it’s him who drives the point when I Am the Resurrection transitions from soulful beat into loose-limbed groove, his jumping lines that put a spring in the step of Waterfall.

Sometimes the ingredient was quite obvious. On Fools Gold, the focal point of the song is not the vocal melody or Squire’s effect-laden playing, or even the breakbeat borrowed from Bobby Byrd’s 1971 single Hot Pants: it’s Mani’s writhing, relentless bassline. 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 went wrong musically it was because they were not enough groovy. Fools Gold’s disappointing follow-up One Love was lackluster, he suggested, because it “needed more groove, it’s a somewhat rigid”. He was a staunch supporter of their frequently criticized second album, Second Coming but believed its flaws could have been rectified by cutting some of the overdubs of Led Zeppelin-inspired guitar and “returning to the groove”.

He likely had a valid argument. Second Coming’s handful of highlights often coincide with the moments when Mounfield was truly given free rein – Daybreak, Love Spreads, the superb Begging You – while on its more turgid songs, you can sense him metaphorically urging the band to pick up the pace. His playing on Tightrope is totally contrary to the listlessness of all other elements that’s going on on the track, while on Straight to the Man he’s audibly attempting to add a bit of pep into what’s otherwise some unremarkable country-rock – not a style one suspects listeners was in a rush to hear the Stone Roses attempt.

His attempts were unsuccessful: Wren and Squire left the band following Second Coming’s release, and the Stone Roses imploded completely after a catastrophic headlining set at the 1996 Reading festival. But Mani’s subsequent role with Primal Scream had an impressively galvanising impact on a band in a decline after the tepid reception to 1994’s rock-y Give Out But Don’t Give Up. His tone became more echo-laden, heavier and more distorted, but the groove that had given 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 ability to push his playing to the front. His popping, mesmerising low-end pattern is certainly the highlight on the fantastic 1999 single Swastika Eyes; his contribution on Kill All Hippies – similar to Swastika Eyes, a highlight of Xtrmntr, undoubtedly the finest album Primal Scream had produced since Screamadelica – is superb.

Always an friendly, sociable presence – the writer John Robb once observed that the Stone Roses’ aloofness towards the press was always punctured if Mani “let his guard down” – he took the stage at the Stone Roses’ 2012 reunion show at Manchester’s Heaton Park using a personalised bass that bore the inscription “Super-Yob”, the nickname of Slade’s outrageously styled and permanently smiling guitarist Dave Hill. This reformation failed to translate into anything more than a long succession of hugely profitable concerts – a couple of new tracks released by the reformed four-piece only demonstrated that any spark had existed in 1989 had turned out unattainable to recapture 18 years later – and Mani discreetly announced his retirement in 2021. He’d made his money and was now focused on angling, which additionally provided “a good reason to go to the pub”.

Maybe he thought he’d done enough: he’d certainly left a mark. The Stone Roses were influential in a variety of ways. Oasis certainly took note of their confident attitude, while the 90s British music scene as a movement was shaped by a aim to break the usual market limitations of indie rock and attract a wider general public, as the Roses had done. But their most obvious direct effect was a sort of rhythmic shift: following their early success, you suddenly couldn’t move for indie bands who wanted to make their audiences dance. That was Mani’s musical raison d’être. “It’s what the rhythm section are for, right?” he once stated. “That’s what they’re for.”