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By every measure, the ascent of the Stone Roses was a rapid and extraordinary phenomenon. It took place during a span of one year. At the start of 1989, they were merely a local cause of excitement in Manchester, largely overlooked by the established outlets for indie music in Britain. Influential DJs wasn’t a fan. The rock journalism had hardly mentioned their latest single, Elephant Stone. They were struggling to pack 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 appearance was the big draw on that week’s Top of the Pops – a barely imaginable state of affairs for the majority of indie bands in the late 80s.

In hindsight, you can find numerous reasons why the Stone Roses forged a unique trajectory, clearly attracting a far bigger and broader audience than usually showed enthusiasm for indie music at the time. They were set apart by their look – which seemed to align them more to the expanding acid house movement – their cockily belligerent attitude and the talent of the lead guitarist John Squire, unashamedly masterful in a world of distorted thrashing downstrokes.

But there was also the incontrovertible fact that the Stone Roses’ rhythm section swung in a way entirely unlike any other act in British alt-rock at the time. There’s an point that the melody of Made of Stone sounded quite similar to that of Primal Scream’s old C86-era single Velocity Girl, but what the rhythm section were playing underneath it really didn’t: you could dance to it in a way that you simply couldn’t to most of the tracks that featured on the decks at the era’s indie discos. You somehow got the impression that the percussionist Alan “Reni” Wren and the bassist Gary “Mani” Mounfield had been brought up on music rather different to the usual alternative group set texts, which was absolutely correct: Mani was a massive admirer of the Byrds’ low-end maestro Chris Hillman but his main inspirations were “great northern soul and groove music”.

The smoothness of his performance was the hidden ingredient behind the Stone Roses’ eponymous first record: it’s Mani who drives the point when I Am the Resurrection shifts from Motown stomp into free-flowing groove, 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 vocal melody or Squire’s effect-laden playing, or even the drum sample taken from Bobby Byrd’s 1971 single Hot Pants: it’s Mani’s snaking, relentless bassline. When you think of She Bangs the Drums, the initial element that comes to thought is the low-end melody.

Indeed, in Mani’s opinion, when the Stone Roses went wrong artistically it was because they were not enough groovy. Fools Gold’s disappointing follow-up One Love was lackluster, he proposed, because it “could have swung, it’s a little bit rigid”. He was a strong defender of their oft-dismissed second album, Second Coming but thought its flaws could have been rectified by removing some of the overdubs of hard rock-influenced six-string work and “reverting to the rhythm”.

He likely had a valid argument. Second Coming’s scattering of highlights usually occur during the instances when Mounfield was really allowed to let rip – Daybreak, Love Spreads, the superb Begging You – while on its more sluggish songs, you can hear him metaphorically urging the band to increase the tempo. His performance on Tightrope is completely contrary to the listlessness of all other elements that’s happening on the song, while on Straight to the Man he’s audibly trying to add a some energy into what’s otherwise some nondescript country-rock – not a style one suspects listeners was in a hurry to hear the Stone Roses give a try.

His efforts were in vain: Wren and Squire left the band following Second Coming’s launch, and the Stone Roses collapsed entirely after a disastrous 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 guitar-driven Give Out But Don’t Give Up. His sound became more echo-laden, heavier and more distorted, but the groove 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 ability to push his playing to the fore. His popping, 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 highlight of Xtrmntr, undoubtedly the best album Primal Scream had produced since Screamadelica – is superb.

Consistently an friendly, sociable figure – the author John Robb once observed that the Stone Roses’ aloofness towards the press was always punctured if Mani “became more relaxed” – 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 nickname of Slade’s preposterously coiffured and permanently smiling axeman Dave Hill. Said reunion did not lead to anything more than a long series of extremely lucrative concerts – a couple of new tracks released by the reformed quartet served only to prove that any spark had existed in 1989 had proved impossible to rediscover 18 years on – and Mani discreetly declared his departure from music in 2021. He’d earned his fortune and was now focused on angling, which additionally provided “a good excuse to go to the pub”.

Maybe he felt he’d achieved plenty: he’d certainly left a mark. The Stone Roses were seminal in a variety of manners. Oasis undoubtedly observed their confident attitude, while the 90s British music scene as a whole was informed by a desire to break the usual commercial constraints of indie rock and attract a more general public, as the Roses had achieved. But their most obvious immediate influence was a sort of groove-based shift: following their early success, you suddenly encountered many alternative acts who aimed to make their fans dance. That was Mani’s artistic raison d’être. “It’s what the bass and drums are for, right?” he once stated. “That’s what they’re for.”