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By every metric, the rise of the Stone Roses was a sudden and remarkable phenomenon. It unfolded over the course of 12 months. At the start of 1989, they were just a regional source of buzz in Manchester, mostly overlooked by the traditional channels for alternative rock in Britain. Influential DJs did not champion them. The rock journalism had barely covered their most recent single, Elephant Stone. They were barely able to fill 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 appearance was the main attraction on that week’s Top of the Pops – a scarcely imaginable situation for most alternative groups in the late 80s.

In hindsight, you can identify any number of reasons why the Stone Roses cut such an extraordinary path, obviously attracting a much larger and broader audience than typically showed enthusiasm for alternative rock at the time. They were set apart by their appearance – which seemed to align them more to the expanding acid house movement – their confidently defiant attitude and the talent of the guitarist John Squire, openly masterful in a scene of distorted thrashing downstrokes.

But there was also the undeniable fact that the Stone Roses’ rhythm section swung in a way entirely unlike any other act in British alternative music 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 rhythm section were doing behind it really didn’t: you could move to it in a way that you could not to most of the songs that featured on the decks at the era’s indie discos. You somehow felt that the drummer Alan “Reni” Wren and the bassist Gary “Mani” Mounfield had been raised on music rather different to the standard indie band influences, which was completely right: Mani was a huge fan of the Byrds’ bassist Chris Hillman but his guiding lights were “good northern soul and groove music”.

The fluidity of his playing was the hidden ingredient behind the Stone Roses’ self-titled debut album: it’s Mani who drives the point when I Am the Resurrection transitions from Motown stomp into loose-limbed groove, his octave-leaping riffs 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 singing 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 think of She Bangs the Drums, the initial element that springs to mind is the bass line.

In fact, in Mani’s view, when the Stone Roses went wrong musically it was because they were insufficiently groovy. Fools Gold’s underwhelming successor One Love was lackluster, he suggested, because it “needed more groove, it’s a somewhat rigid”. He was a staunch defender of their oft-dismissed follow-up record, Second Coming but thought its weaknesses might have been fixed by removing some of the overdubs of Led Zeppelin-inspired six-string work and “reverting to the rhythm”.

He likely had a valid argument. Second Coming’s handful of highlights often occur during the moments when Mounfield was truly allowed to let rip – Daybreak, Love Spreads, the excellent Begging You – while on its increasingly turgid songs, you can sense him figuratively willing the band to increase the tempo. His playing on Tightrope is totally at odds with the lethargy of everything else that’s going on on the track, while on Straight to the Man he’s audibly trying to add a some pep into what’s otherwise just some nondescript 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 following Second Coming’s launch, and the Stone Roses imploded entirely after a catastrophic headlining performance at the 1996 Reading festival. But Mani’s subsequent role with Primal Scream had an remarkably galvanising impact on a band in a slump after the cool reception to 1994’s rock-y Give Out But Don’t Give Up. His sound became more echo-laden, weightier and more fuzzy, but the swing that had provided the Stone Roses a point of difference was still present – particularly on the laid-back rhythm of the 1997 single Kowalski – as was his skill to bring his bass work to the fore. His popping, mesmerising low-end pattern is certainly the star turn on the fantastic 1999 single Swastika Eyes; his contribution 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 presence – the author John Robb once observed that the Stone Roses’ aloofness towards the press was invariably broken if Mani “let his guard down” – he performed at the Stone Roses’ 2012 comeback show at Manchester’s Heaton Park playing a personalised bass that displayed the inscription “Super-Yob”, the moniker of Slade’s preposterously styled and constantly grinning guitarist Dave Hill. This reformation failed to translate into anything more than a long succession of extremely lucrative gigs – a couple of fresh tracks put out by the reformed quartet only demonstrated that any spark had existed in 1989 had proved unattainable to rediscover 18 years on – and Mani quietly declared his retirement in 2021. He’d made his money and was now focused on angling, which additionally offered “a good excuse 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 range of ways. Oasis certainly took note of their confident attitude, while Britpop as a movement was informed by a aim to break the standard market limitations of alternative music and attract a wider general public, as the Roses had achieved. But their most obvious direct effect was a kind of groove-based change: following their initial success, you abruptly couldn’t move for indie bands who aimed to make their fans move. That was Mani’s artistic raison d’être. “It’s what the rhythm section are for, aren’t they?” he once averred. “That’s what they’re for.”