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By every metric, the ascent of the Stone Roses was a sudden and extraordinary phenomenon. It took place over the course of 12 months. At the beginning of 1989, they were merely a regional source of buzz in Manchester, mostly ignored by the traditional channels for indie music in Britain. Influential DJs did not champion them. The music press had hardly covered their latest single, Elephant Stone. They were barely able to fill even a more modest London club 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 main draw on that week’s Top of the Pops – a barely imaginable state of affairs for the majority of alternative groups in the late 80s.

In hindsight, you can find any number of reasons why the Stone Roses cut such an extraordinary path, obviously drawing in a far bigger and more diverse audience than usually displayed an interest in alternative rock at the time. They were set apart by their look – which seemed to align them more to the burgeoning acid house scene – their confidently defiant attitude and the skill of the guitarist John Squire, unashamedly masterful in a world of distorted thrashing downstrokes.

But there was also the undeniable fact that the Stone Roses’ bass and drums swung in a way entirely unlike any other act in British alternative music at the time. There’s an point that the tune of Made of Stone sounded quite similar to that of Primal Scream’s early C86-era single Velocity Girl, but what the rhythm section were playing underneath it certainly did not: you could move to it in a way that you could not to most of the songs that featured on the turntables at the era’s alternative clubs. You somehow got the impression that the percussionist Alan “Reni” Wren and the bass player Gary “Mani” Mounfield had been brought up on sounds rather different to the usual alternative group influences, which was completely correct: Mani was a huge admirer of the Byrds’ bassist Chris Hillman but his main inspirations were “good Motown-inspired and groove music”.

The fluidity of his performance was the hidden ingredient behind the Stone Roses’ eponymous debut album: it’s him who drives the point when I Am the Resurrection shifts from soulful beat into free-flowing funk, his jumping riffs 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 guitar work, or even the drum sample taken 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 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 not enough funky. Fools Gold’s disappointing follow-up One Love was lackluster, he suggested, because it “could have swung, it’s a somewhat stiff”. He was a strong supporter of their oft-dismissed second album, Second Coming but thought its flaws might have been fixed by cutting some of the layers of Led Zeppelin-inspired guitar and “reverting to the rhythm”.

He may well have had a point. Second Coming’s handful of highlights usually occur during the instances when Mounfield was really given free rein – Daybreak, Love Spreads, the excellent Begging You – while on its increasingly sluggish songs, you can sense him figuratively willing the band to pick up the pace. His playing on Tightrope is completely at odds with the lethargy of all other elements that’s going on on the track, while on Straight to the Man he’s clearly trying to inject a bit of energy into what’s otherwise some nondescript folk-rock – not a style anyone would guess listeners was in a rush to hear the Stone Roses give a try.

His attempts were unsuccessful: Wren and Squire departed the band following Second Coming’s release, and the Stone Roses collapsed entirely after a catastrophic top-billed performance at the 1996 Reading festival. But Mani’s next gig with Primal Scream had an remarkably energising impact on a band in a slump after the cool reception to 1994’s rock-y Give Out But Don’t Give Up. His tone became dubbier, weightier and more fuzzy, but the groove that had given the Stone Roses a unique edge was still present – particularly on the laid-back funk of the 1997 single Kowalski – as was his skill to push his bass work to the fore. His popping, hypnotic bass line is certainly the star turn on the brilliant 1999 single Swastika Eyes; his playing on Kill All Hippies – like Swastika Eyes, a standout of Xtrmntr, easily the finest album Primal Scream had produced since Screamadelica – is superb.

Always an affable, sociable presence – the author John Robb once noted that the Stone Roses’ hauteur towards the media was invariably punctured if Mani “became more relaxed” – he performed at the Stone Roses’ 2012 reunion show at Manchester’s Heaton Park playing a customised bass that bore the legend “Super-Yob”, the moniker of Slade’s outrageously styled and constantly smiling guitarist Dave Hill. This reunion did not lead to anything more than a lengthy series of hugely profitable concerts – a couple of fresh singles put out by the reformed four-piece only demonstrated that whatever magic had been present in 1989 had turned out unattainable to rediscover nearly two decades on – and Mani quietly 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”.

Perhaps he thought he’d done enough: he’d definitely made an impact. The Stone Roses were influential in a range of manners. Oasis undoubtedly took note of their confident approach, while the 90s British music scene as a whole was shaped by a aim to break the standard market limitations of indie rock and attract a wider general public, as the Roses had achieved. But their clearest direct effect was a sort of groove-based shift: following their early success, you abruptly encountered many alternative acts 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 stated. “That’s what they’re for.”