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By every metric, the rise of the Stone Roses was a rapid and remarkable phenomenon. It took place over the course of 12 months. At the start of 1989, they were merely a local cause of excitement in Manchester, mostly ignored by the established outlets for alternative rock in Britain. John Peel did not champion them. The rock journalism had hardly mentioned their most recent single, Elephant Stone. They were struggling to pack even a more modest 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 conceivable situation for the majority of alternative groups in the end of the 1980s.

In hindsight, you can find numerous causes why the Stone Roses cut such an extraordinary path, clearly attracting a much larger and more diverse audience than usually showed enthusiasm for alternative rock at the time. They were distinguished by their look – which seemed to align them more to the burgeoning dance music scene – their cockily belligerent demeanor and the skill of the lead guitarist John Squire, openly virtuosic in a scene of fuzzy thrashing downstrokes.

But there was also the incontrovertible truth that the Stone Roses’ bass and drums swung in a way completely unlike 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 early C86-era single Velocity Girl, but what the rhythm section were doing behind it really didn’t: you could dance to it in a way that you could not to most of the tracks that graced the decks at the era’s alternative clubs. You somehow got the impression that the drummer Alan “Reni” Wren and the bass player Gary “Mani” Mounfield had been raised on sounds rather different to the usual indie band influences, which was absolutely correct: Mani was a massive admirer of the Byrds’ low-end maestro Chris Hillman but his guiding lights were “great Motown-inspired and groove music”.

The fluidity of his performance was the secret sauce behind the Stone Roses’ eponymous debut album: it’s him who drives the moment when I Am the Resurrection transitions from Motown stomp into loose-limbed funk, his octave-leaping lines that add bounce 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 wah-pedal-heavy guitar work, or even the drum sample taken from Bobby Byrd’s 1971 single Hot Pants: it’s Mani’s writhing, relentless bass. When you recall She Bangs the Drums, the first thing that springs to mind is the bass line.

In fact, in Mani’s opinion, when the Stone Roses went wrong musically it was because they were insufficiently funky. Fools Gold’s disappointing follow-up One Love was underwhelming, he suggested, because it “could have swung, it’s a little bit rigid”. He was a staunch supporter of their frequently criticized second album, 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 rhythm”.

He may well have had a point. Second Coming’s scattering of standout tracks usually coincide with the instances when Mounfield was truly given free rein – Daybreak, Love Spreads, the superb Begging You – while on its increasingly sluggish songs, you can sense him figuratively willing the band to increase the tempo. His performance on Tightrope is completely contrary to the lethargy of everything else that’s going on on the track, while on Straight to the Man he’s audibly attempting to add a some pep into what’s otherwise just some unremarkable folk-rock – not a style one suspects listeners was in a rush to hear the Stone Roses give a try.

His efforts were in vain: Wren and Squire left the band in the wake of Second Coming’s release, and the Stone Roses collapsed completely after a catastrophic headlining performance at the 1996 Reading festival. But Mani’s next gig with Primal Scream had an remarkably energising effect on a band in a decline after the cool response to 1994’s rock-y Give Out But Don’t Give Up. His tone became more echo-laden, heavier and more distorted, but the swing that had given the Stone Roses a unique edge was still in evidence – particularly on the low-slung funk of the 1997 single Kowalski – as was his ability to push his bass work to the fore. His popping, mesmerising bass line is very much the star turn on the brilliant 1999 single Swastika Eyes; his contribution on Kill All Hippies – like Swastika Eyes, a highlight of Xtrmntr, easily the finest album Primal Scream had made since Screamadelica – is magnificent.

Consistently an friendly, clubbable presence – the writer John Robb once noted that the Stone Roses’ aloofness towards the media was invariably punctured if Mani “became more relaxed” – he took the stage at the Stone Roses’ 2012 reunion show at Manchester’s Heaton Park playing a personalised bass that displayed the legend “Super-Yob”, the nickname of Slade’s preposterously coiffured and constantly grinning guitarist Dave Hill. This reformation did not lead to anything beyond a lengthy succession of hugely profitable gigs – a couple of fresh singles put out by the reformed four-piece only demonstrated that any spark had been present in 1989 had proved impossible to recapture nearly two decades later – and Mani discreetly declared his departure from music in 2021. He’d made his money and was now more concerned with fly-fishing, which additionally provided “a good reason to go to the pub”.

Maybe he thought he’d achieved plenty: he’d certainly made an impact. The Stone Roses were seminal in a variety of ways. Oasis undoubtedly observed their confident approach, while Britpop as a whole was informed by a desire to transcend the usual market limitations of alternative music and reach a wider general public, as the Roses had achieved. But their clearest immediate influence was a kind of groove-based shift: following their initial success, you abruptly encountered many 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.”