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By any metric, the rise of the Stone Roses was a rapid and remarkable phenomenon. It took place during a span of 12 months. At the start of 1989, they were merely a local cause of excitement in Manchester, mostly ignored by the traditional outlets for indie music in Britain. John Peel did not champion them. The music press had hardly covered their latest single, Elephant Stone. They were barely able to pack even a smaller London club such as Dingwalls. But by November they were massive. Their single Fools Gold had entered the charts at No 8 and their performance was the big attraction on that week’s Top of the Pops – a barely imaginable situation for the majority of indie bands in the end of the 1980s.

In hindsight, you can identify numerous reasons why the Stone Roses forged a unique trajectory, clearly attracting a far bigger and more diverse crowd than typically showed enthusiasm for indie music at the time. They were set apart by their look – which seemed to align them more to the expanding dance music scene – their confidently defiant demeanor and the skill of the guitarist John Squire, unashamedly masterful in a world of distorted thrashing downstrokes.

But there was also the undeniable truth that the Stone Roses’ rhythm section grooved in a way entirely different from any other act in British alt-rock at the time. There’s an point that the tune of Made of Stone sounded quite similar to that of Primal Scream’s old C86-era single Velocity Girl, but what the bass and drums were doing behind 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 turntables at the era’s alternative clubs. You in some way felt that the percussionist Alan “Reni” Wren and the bassist Gary “Mani” Mounfield had been brought up on sounds quite distinct from the usual indie band set texts, which was completely right: Mani was a massive fan of the Byrds’ bassist Chris Hillman but his guiding lights were “good northern soul and funk”.

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

At times the ingredient wasn’t so secret. On Fools Gold, the centerpiece 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 bassline. When you recall She Bangs the Drums, the first thing that springs to mind is the bass line.

Indeed, in Mani’s view, when the Stone Roses went wrong artistically 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 little bit stiff”. He was a staunch supporter of their frequently criticized second album, Second Coming but thought its weaknesses might have been fixed by removing some of the layers of hard rock-influenced guitar and “returning to the rhythm”.

He likely had a valid argument. Second Coming’s scattering of standout tracks often coincide with the instances 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 performance on Tightrope is totally contrary to the listlessness of everything else that’s going on on the track, while on Straight to the Man he’s audibly attempting to add a bit of energy into what’s otherwise just some unremarkable country-rock – not a genre anyone would guess anyone was in a rush to hear the Stone Roses give a try.

His attempts were in vain: Wren and Squire departed the band in the wake of Second Coming’s release, and the Stone Roses collapsed completely after a catastrophic headlining set at the 1996 Reading festival. But Mani’s next gig with Primal Scream had an remarkably 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 increasingly fuzzy, but the groove that had provided the Stone Roses a unique edge was still present – particularly on the low-slung funk of the 1997 single Kowalski – as was his skill to push his playing to the front. His popping, hypnotic low-end pattern is very much the highlight on the brilliant 1999 single Swastika Eyes; his contribution on Kill All Hippies – like Swastika Eyes, a highlight of Xtrmntr, easily the best album Primal Scream had made since Screamadelica – is superb.

Consistently an affable, clubbable figure – the author John Robb once observed that the Stone Roses’ hauteur towards the media was invariably punctured 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 legend “Super-Yob”, the moniker of Slade’s outrageously coiffured and constantly grinning guitarist Dave Hill. Said reformation did not lead to anything beyond a long series of hugely lucrative gigs – two new singles released by the reformed quartet only demonstrated that any spark had been present in 1989 had turned out unattainable to rediscover 18 years on – and Mani quietly declared his departure from music in 2021. He’d earned his fortune and was now focused on angling, which additionally offered “a good excuse to go to the pub”.

Maybe he felt he’d achieved plenty: he’d definitely made an impact. The Stone Roses were influential in a range of ways. Oasis undoubtedly took note of their swaggering attitude, while Britpop as a whole was informed by a aim to transcend the usual commercial constraints of indie rock and attract a wider mainstream audience, as the Roses had done. But their clearest direct influence was a sort of groove-based shift: in the wake of 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 stated. “That’s what they’re for.”